Welcome Me to the Sandbox

I’m not usually a sandbox-style DM, but darn it, I am now.

 

I wouldn’t call what I do railroading, either, so much as tailored storytelling. Railroading implies that I have a story, it’s my story, you’re going to experience it, and then it will conclude with either your success or your failure.

 

This is not how I play, and I suspect it isn’t how most people play. Instead, I have a larger campaign story in my mind and maybe a few beats along the way and I modify those based on player actions, preferences, and successes/failures. I have a larger story I’m telling, but I tailor it to the PC and players at the table over time, incorporating them more and more into the larger story and making it as much about them as possible.

 

I approach setting in the same way. I almost always run games in an established setting, usually the Forgotten Realms as it’s my first and greatest gaming love. That said, I never approach those settings with a sense of the sacred. Everything is expendable and I don’t mind ruining the world in order to tell my story, no matter how understated or earth-shattering (sometimes literally).

 

So as I gear up the start of a new campaign I have decided to move well out of my comfort zone and move along the Railroad to Sandbox scale way over to the Sandbox side. I have some vague story ideas in mind, and some vague setting ideas in mind, but nothing firm and nothing that can’t be changed as time goes on.

 

It’s also worth noting that this campaign is unusual because we’re starting it while still playing in the current campaign. I’m running two campaigns for the same group at the same time on the same night. Each game night we do 75% original campaign, 25% new campaign until the original concludes (probably this summer). But that’s neither here nor there (although perhaps worth discussing at another time).

 

What I came to share today is the tale of how I stepped into the world of Sandbox and it began last night with character creation. While the characters were being made so was the world and it was being made as much by the players as it was by me (the DM). More so even…at least so far.

 

Here’s how the system worked. I’d announce the beginning of character generation, “everybody choose a class” or some such. When that was done we’d then go around the table and everyone would get to add something to the world. I got to add twice, at the start of each of these rounds and again at the end of it.

 

So it started with me saying: “the starting location of our campaign is going to be a small border town” then oGreg said, “and in that town is a town guard”. Andy added, “the town is a trade waypoint between the center of the realm and whatever is out there past the wilderness”. Rob then told us that outside of town it’s jungle-like requiring guides to get anywhere. nGreg (who was having trouble getting into it at first) came up with a simple, “there is only one road going through town”. Dirk says, “and the leader of the town is a half-orc”. And I conclude, “and he’s a benevolent minor noble” (thinking I might use him as a trusted patron later).

 

And so round one of character/world creation began.

 

Then I’d say, “okay, everyone pick a race” and once they did we’d go through the world creation process again. We went through 5 rounds of this creating characters and the world hand in hand.

 

I originally thought that this would give people a chance to add in characters, organizations, plots, etc. that suited what they wanted from their characters and the story more and more. I think what I actually got, however, was the realization that everyone wants to be a setting designer to some degree and this helped them scratch that itch.

 

We ended up with a Roman-based civilization called Nexus where magic is controlled by secretive, mob-like cartels and mechanical advancement is the great democratization of power.

 

There were times when I would twist something or turn it on it’s head and that’s part of the fun as well. For example, I wasn’t sure about the mix of machines and magic…we don’t have rules for machines, after all. So I said “fine, they’re both there…but they don’t mix”. We also had a player determine that the capital city was some sort of port city…so again I turned it on it’s head and said, “yes…and the main form of transportation for the well to do is airship…so maybe it’s an airship port”.

 

There are many more details to the setting that they created and few of them directly tie into the characters that they built…we know a lot of general things about the gods, for example, but we don’t actually have any gods figured out yet.

 

Now I have a long list of ideas and seeds to build from that, when combined with my original story concept, and the campaign I designed on Tome episode 190 (with Ryan Costello Jr. from the 3.5 Private Sanctuary) and yet there’s tons of things not designed and holes to fill in in the world. I think it will be a fun exercise for me to flesh out the rest of the world and it will be fun for the players to see the elements of the world that they designed show up along the way.

 

Have you ever done any collaborative world building? How did it go? Did you have a system in place like taking turns, asking everyone to contribute more or less equally?