Scripted Adventures and Old School Sandboxes: Not So Different

Common rpg blogosphere wisdom says that heavily scripted adventures are the antithesis of the old school sandbox. In scripted adventures, characters are essentially railroaded from scene to scene and battle to battle, while characters in sandboxes can do anything they want and go anywhere their abilities allow, so long as the pre-existing design of the sandbox allows it. In scripted adventures, change in the world is predetermined by the writer, while change organically occurs in a sandbox as a result of characters' actions.

Gameplay of both scripted modules and old school sandboxes, in addition to some story-driven indie games, over the past few years have convinced me that this is a false distinction.

Last night, we played Death Frost Doom - a seemingly old school sandbox dungeon in many respects that is built for use with a D&D retroclone. The writer, James Raggi IV, exhorted the DM in the intro to be fair according to the way the dungeon was set up and let the characters face the consequences of their actions. The problem was, the dungeon was set up in such a way that the odds were stacked heavily against the characters, and the scenario was generally set up in such a way that there was one very likely conclusion. Indeed, a quick perusal of actual play reviews reveals that many others hit this conclusion upon playing it.

In other words, this "old school" scenario was set up in such a way that the characters were physically free to do what they wanted, but only in the narrow confines of a fairly small physical area. I think there are several ways that Death Frost Doom differs from traditional old school sandboxes, but this aspect remains right on. Given these narrow confines, the characters acted in fairly predictable ways.

On the other hand, we've been playing a heavily scripted Planescape module (Dead Gods) on and off for a while. The scope is epic and crosses several planes. There's a heavy meta-plot built into it. But given some meaty story hooks in addition to just physical ones and the simple lure of treasure, players have made some very unpredictable and wacky decisions around the back story. Needless to say, I've had to heavily modify the module on the fly. In essence, the module has become more of a sandbox than not. And in ways that I never could've predicted in advance.

We've played other more story-driven games more recently as well - like Fading Suns using the Spirit of the Century (SoTC) system. Fading Suns has a crazy amount of source material, and SoTC has mechanics based around story-like attributes of characters, like Haughty Noble (or whatever else one comes up with). Using these mechanics has allowed for unpredictable and organically driven play as well, in ways that just don't emerge in the traditional sandbox.

When I look at all these types of games together as a GM, a conclusion starts to emerge for me: There are lots of ways to allow characters free reign and meaningful choices. Sometimes, an open physical environment works. Sometimes, GM or module-provided story hooks can provoke unpredictable choices that require GM responsiveness and flexibility. Sometimes, explicitly written character traits can serve the same goal. These are all just different tools that the GM and players can bring to bear. Including such tools in game content or game mechanics simply emphasizes and reinforces that aspect of the game. As a GM, I try to select the right tool at the right time because it's not just the content of the module or sandbox that matters; it's also the group, with all their strengths, weaknesses, and mood shifts. It's all about using just the right tool and bringing the cool at just the right time.

And that's really the bottom line for me. I'm not so concerned about remaining true to source material I may have prepped 3 hours before a game as much as providing interesting and fun situations for my players to which I need to respond flexibly. Sometimes, these situations are hard to manage, because a truly open world, with a range of story and character hooks AND mechanics can end up about anywhere. (This is actually my biggest weakness as a GM - that I end up putting myself in situations that are too unpredictable and tough to manage on the fly.)

But it just goes to show: Sometimes the sandbox feels scripted and the script wide open.

The Importance of Robust Settings...Or Not

Over the past couple years, I've played (or at least read) several games with varying levels of setting detail. Games like Planescape, L5R, and Mutants & Masterminds are chock full of detail that the players and GM can devour. Games like Burning Wheel and Wild Talents...not so much. With these latter games, I've generally created the setting during the first session (or over email) with the other players in the group. So the natural question is: Which way is better?

The games with robust settings have a lot going for them. They significantly decrease the work load for the GM, which from experience, can be a huge boon to maintaining an ongoing game. Given that a lot of players have tendencies toward the bad-ass Wolverine type player (brooding loner), settings give every player something shared, especially if they are encouraged to dive into the setting at the onset of the game and connect their characters to it in some way. Some players also love reading through the setting and figuring out where their characters fit in it. One of my fellow players loves the Mutants & Masterminds setting and gets jazzed whenever a familiar but unused face shows up. Also, robust settings can really help explain the tone of a game with an unfamiliar world, like Dark Heresy or L5R, to players.

But these types of huge settings can sometimes lead to problems. Even if warned that the GM has license to pick and choose, players can get upset when the setting isn't precisely translated in game. When I GM, I often feel that a well described setting is more constraining than enabling. I like the ability to flesh out the setting as the story demands - in a Wild Talents game I'm GMing right now, I've changed various setting elements on the fly that seemed hardwired in to me when each session started (like the underlying physics of the universe after our resident scientist, Dr. Epistemic, investigated the origin of a rift in space). And I think that players have more buy in from the outset if they've actually had a hand in creating the setting themselves.

In the end, I favor less setting rather than more. But as with all things rpg-related, it all seems to come back to the makeup of each group. Go with what your group needs to give you the best possible game.

Play by Post vs. Real Life

As I briefly noted below, I've just gotten involved with a play by post AD&D2e Planescape game. You can read about it here. With only a little more than a day under our belt, I think it's shaping up nicely. The other players are enthusiastic, and the DM (noisms from the monsters and manuals blog) is setting a wonderfully old school tone.

I'm really trying to play a type of character that I'm not sure I've ever played in an rpg before - someone who's very precise and bound by harsh cultural customs (you know, like duty, honor, and hierarchy). In other words, someone who's lawful neutral. It's fun but definitely challenging. Especially because I don't want to piss off the other players who I don't even know with an overabundance of inaccessibility and arrogance. (It's all in character - I swear it's not me!)

It's hard to say whether this type of game has the staying power of in person games (though who am I kidding about the staying power of these). But I'm definitely enjoying the writing aspect. I'm trying to look at my character as I've heard great comic book writers talk about their characters: It's all about distilling the character down to the handful of core elements that make that character cool and make that character tick. So, I made a list of some elements, and I'm going to try to keep them on the screen next to my browser as I post.

At the very least, the writing saves me from embarrassing voice acting.