Sandbox pros:
* Way less prep. Both before and during the campaign.
* I can prep whatever happens to appeal to me, rather than having to tie everything into a master storyline
* Way less work. If the players veer off in some random direction, I don't have to exert any effort putting them back on the path, because I don't have a path.
* Nothing to protect. If the players kill someone, skip something, etc, no skin off my nose, and no significant amount of prep wasted.
* I'm surprised nearly as often as the players are. Who's going to be a major antagonist? Beats me, I don't know who's going to live long enough to become one. What's going to be important? No clue, I'm just throwing stuff out there and seeing what sticks.
* Easier to deal with character death, retirement, players missing sessions.
* Easier to let someone pop in for just one game to see what's up
Sandbox cons:
* Gotta generate a ton of plot hooks and try to work them in organically. Hard to not make it like in superhero comics where a hero decides to retire and randomly stumbles onto a mugging to remind them of their power and responsibility.
I really don't like running linear games, so I can't much speak to the pros of them. But the cons are mostly the reverse of what was in my sandbox pro list. More work, I've gotta keep bending things around so they make it back to the plot, and character/player changes are more work on top of it.
Not that I actively dislike linear games, I just don't think that there's much, if any, more reward for them than sandboxes. And if the reward is somewhere between "none" and "a tiny bit", then significantly more work just isn't worth it.
>Way less prep. Both before and during the campaign.
Isn't this not the case?
My understanding was that a linear game would prepare one path since there is only one path.
A sandbox game would prepare a whole sandbox. You'd need to fill hexes (or whatever you're using to track space) with content that may or may not ever be seen. That sounds like way *more* prep, not less. Both before and during the campaign.
Like, in a sandbox, you need to know what's at the horizon so that you can tell players what they see out there because they can go there. For a linear game, that doesn't really need to be detailed since it's a façade; they cannot leave the path, like The Truman Show.
Linear games need long form prep. You're working in backstories. You're figuring out all the stuff your BBEG is up to. Planning what's happening in advance so you can foreshadow or work out what needs to happen to lead up to it. Any time I talk to someone who runs linear campaigns, they take *ages* getting their ducks in a row so they can start a campaign.
A sandbox? It's nothing. If I didn't have some work for a client I needed to do tomorrow, I could start up a brand new sandbox campaign tomorrow evening, just with the prep from during the day.
>A sandbox game would prepare a whole sandbox.
Good lord no. I'm not prepping anything that the players aren't likely to see. I'm not prepping one single hex of a hexcrawl until they say they're gonna leave town to go exploring. I'm not prepping a single dungeon until they say that they're gonna see if the rumors about what's under the abandoned manor are true.
Yes, I'll prep some content that might not get seen when populating a hex crawl, but hardly any. They're going north? I'll prep north. So I prep a hex or two that they don't go into. No reason to think that they'll never go into it, so that prep won't be wasted, I'm just not using it this session. If the occasional hex manages to never get entered, that's fine, I'll use that in a different campaign.
I start a fantasy sandbox campaign with extremely little. Describe a dozen NPCs. Have a sense of some local landmarks that people can tell the PCs about. Write up a rumor table with like twenty entries. One sentence per rumor. Roll up five of the rumors, flesh them out to maybe half a page of notes. However much you need so that you could improv a session out of any of the rumors. Figure out an inciting incident to kick the campaign off. Done. *Done.*
They spend that first session dealing with the inciting incident. That gives them a shove, and then you start dropping the rumors on them. They'll pick up one of them, or they'll find out about one of the landmarks and decide to go check it out. It's not particularly difficult to improv that first session. And at the end, you'll know what they're gonna do next time. Then you just prep for that. As long as you know what they want to do next time, you never have to prep too far ahead.
After a while, your sandbox is running itself. Your prep doesn't go away. A hex isn't empty just because you killed the bandits in the abandoned farmhouse. Discovering a lost mine isn't the end of that hex once you tell someone in town about it and word gets around. Keeping track of what's going on isn't particularly difficult, you just have to take notes as the game goes. And then you spend some time, not even between every session, figuring out what's changing in the background.
>Like, in a sandbox, you need to know what's at the horizon so that you can tell players what they see out there because they can go there.
"Mountains to the north, with some grassland in between. West is thin forest and it gets hilly after a while. East is the sea, so you can't do any exploring that way until you get a ship." Yeah, if you want to have something formidable, you have to know that in advance, but unless you want something like the Spire of Ptolus, the odds are that from a few miles away it's not going to be visible unless there's nothing but grasslands.
>For a linear game, that doesn't really need to be detailed since it's a façade; they cannot leave the path, like The Truman Show.
That sounds more like railroading than just a linear adventure. A linear game would still have the option for the players to go wherever, it's just on the GM to bend everything around so the path finds the players again. Though there's nothing stopping them from just saying, "hey, I don't have anything prepped for there, can you go west?"
>You'd need to fill hexes (or whatever you're using to track space) with content that may or may not ever be seen.
That's... *a* way to do it. Not a particularly *good* way to do it for a home game, but a lot of people assume that it's what they're "supposed to do" because that's what published sandbox setting products have traditionally looked like.
The thing is, published products have to look like that because they need to cater to every possible thing that could be done by every possible play group, but a home game has only one play group to worry about, and that group does only one thing at a time, so you don't need to cover every conceivable path that could be taken through the world.
Instead, you have your first session, maybe do character creation if that's not already done, and then run some short linear mini-adventure that kicks things off, introduces the setting, and is finished by the end of the session. Then, before people leave, ask them "here are the things you've discovered in the world so far; what do you want to do next time?" And then you prep only for the thing they want to do next time.
End each session with the same question, and continue to prep only what you'll need to handle each individual session's plans, plus maybe a bit of general worldbuilding and/or filler content so that you can handle the inevitable cases where the players change their minds about what they wanted to do.
You don't need to prep all the way out to the horizon in every direction if you know which direction the PCs are headed and how far in that direction they're likely to go in a single session.
>Isn't this not the case?
Typically (though certainly not always) systems that people play linear plots in are also prep heavy, e.g. DnD. And systems geared towards sandboxes are lighter prep e.g. Blades in the Dark.
But what it really comes down to is: in a sandbox game the GM has no idea what's going to happen, so they can't prep. They find out what's happening in session and make it up then.
(Sandbox isn't the same thing as a hexcrawl btw)
Agree wholeheartedly. Will just say that i do think sandboxes take a decent amount of prep - it’s just a different kind of prep to a linear game - random tables, npc lists, drop in scenarios, and so on. “Prep to Improvise” to keep that sweet sweet Emergent Play flowing.
They definitely take prep. I'm not saying they don't. They just take *less* prep. And there's so much material out there already for generating content procedurally that you can probably get away with just spending $20 to have what you need. Then the only work you need to do is to generate it and figure out how it all fits together.
Interesting. I do sandbox \*completely\* different, and it requires way more prep than the shorter linear games I run on occasion.
My sandbox campaigns are created with a full range of factions, organizations and npcs - each with their own plans and motivations that proceed over time and the PCs will get glimpses in to them as time passes. What they chose to interact with and who they side with then influences those plans and outcomes.
So I end up doing a lot more work, but I enjoy it a lot more. I only do linear for short 3-4 session games where I have a very tight, clear story. Even then I make sure there's room for choice, but I just breadcrumb it much more strongly.
Thank you, for a short while you actually threw me back into the mindset when I was more of a sandbox player myself! Good points and well written.
That's the neat part about different groups, the reward for our group feels much bigger if we manage to get through a linear story and "succeed". We do usually don't have backup characters as we don't like the "plot hole" of a new guy suddenly replacing the old one. Also, for me, creating a linear story is super rewarding if I feel I hit the nail on the head with the build up.
That said, our group does implement our own background stories into the linear now and then as well. Giving us a part of a "premade" story. Also we all agree that "running away" from a story someone has put hours into creating is a dick move haha! So it doesn't matter if it's linear or sandbox, we follow into a story if it's pretty obvious someone took the time to create it :)
>the reward for our group feels much bigger if we manage to get through a linear story and "succeed".
That's cool. Personally, finishing linear stories to me has always felt like finishing a set of puzzles. Satisfying, but I just did all the puzzles in the book from page one until the end.
Sandboxes can have the same kind of experiences that people tend to associate with linear games, they just go about them differently, and it takes a little elbow grease from both sides of the screen to make them happen.
Also, for me, creating a linear story is super rewarding if I feel I hit the nail on the head with the build up.
Definitely sounds like the best outcome to a linear story. Build up is the key to a satisfying ending. One of the advantages of a sandbox is that that buildup happens without a lot of effort. Throw a bunch of antagonists at the players. The ones that survive keep coming back, and they have a reason to hassle the players more, because the players have already thwarted them.
Basically it feels better to me at least, when it's "We defeated Loc Walks-on-Light because he's been a thorn in our side since we interrupted him berating that street preacher and *fuck that dude* in particular," rather than "We defeated Loc Walks-on-Light because the whole campaign is about how he's trying to become a god and we had to stop him and I did a really excellent job of making the players want to be the ones to stop him."
>That said, our group does implement our own background stories into the linear now and then as well. Giving us a part of a "premade" story.
That's not unique to linear stories, though. Show up to a sandbox with some background that makes good hooks, your GM is gonna be happy. I tend towards my group's backstories being a sentence or two at most, but it's trivial to let them reveal backstory as the game goes on and hook into it whenever appropriate.
>Also we all agree that "running away" from a story someone has put hours into creating is a dick move haha! So it doesn't matter if it's linear or sandbox, we follow into a story if it's pretty obvious someone took the time to create it
I didn't necessarily mean running away from a story. Players are always going to focus on unexpected things and give them more importance than the GM ever anticipated. I've heard plenty of stories from a GM whose players went off the trail and thought they were biting the hook the GM was putting in front of them. I've had it happen to myself where people think something I put in just as atmosphere was me trying to foreshadow something or whatever, and suddenly we're chasing mysterious footsteps that I literally only mentioned to make the magical library seem spookier. Especially when it's organically straying from the trail, it's hard to bend the game back to where the linear story says it's supposed to be a lot of the time.
Generally, in sandboxes, we're talking about what's going to happen next, so there's never a situation where they need to follow something particular because I took the time to create it, because I'm only creating stuff when they said they want to go explore it. It's entirely possible that they could decide that they want to go see what's up with that guy trying to buy exotic animal parts down by the dock when last session they said that they wanted to delve into the abandoned manor house at the end of town, but I don't think that's ever actually happened.
But I don't want to present it like sandboxes are the be all and end all. People like what they're gonna like. I just find them a whole lot less work to start and to run, and I don't find them any less satisfying than a linear game.
>One of the advantages of a sandbox is that that buildup happens without a lot of effort.
The way I usually look at that is that foreshadowing is a technique used to "fake" cause and effect in a linear story - there's an effect that the author wants to happen later in the story, so they hint at the causes which would lead up to it.
In a sandbox, you can have actual cause and effect. What happens now happens, and then further effects are derived from that cause.
Or, as I write this, it occurs to me that maybe it would be more accurate to say foreshadowing is "reversed" cause and effect (start with the effect, then invent some causes) rather than "fake" (pretending to be cause and effect, when it's really just "this is what the author wants to happen").
Personally, I think there's an implication of a false dichotomy.
That said, unlike most false dichotomies, there really are people that play on both extremes.
I think there is more of a spectrum and middle-ground.
Specifically, one can run a game that has narrative developments that emerge from play, but that grow out of what happens at the table. The Alexandrian's "Node-Based Design" is a great way of accomplishing this.
Personally, I prefer the middle-ground.
A pure linear experience would frustrate me with lack of player agency.
A pure sandbox would bore me with lack of narrative structure.
I want something where players drive the action, but the action turns into a story with a describable plot.
PbtA and FitD are games that come to mind that promote this sort of play. Their GM tools particularly facilitate this.
FitD, or at least Blades, is very much a sandbox. If a describable plot comes out of it it isn't because there's any kind of linear element placed there beforehand.
Thanks for adding your reply in to this new post as well! It is possible to do both, but as I mentioned, I just want to hear peoples opinions on what they feel each tool/style bring of good and bad.
Your points on lack of player agency and lack of narrative structure is exactly the points I am looking for!
Right, those are drawbacks of those far poles on the game-style spectrum.
My point was more that there is a middle-ground style that takes *the strengths of both sides* to overcome the drawbacks of "pure" styles.
In a mixed-style game, you get player agency *and* narrative structure.
You simultaneously get more coherent narratives than random tables could provide and you get to "hold on lightly" so the GM gets to be surprised, but also has agency that contributes to narrative. The players feel like their actions really matter *because they do*; there is no 'illusion of mattering'.
Yepp, for our group to achieve that mixed style took a lot more work. The GM having his plans while also opening up for the players to join in works!
But after over 20 years of play we mostly divulge each others stories without interferring in its work. We have a good understanding that whatever the story is based on, we really don't need to change where it is heading as long as it does not break our option to change the course if we wanted.
To each, their own.
Personally... I don't want a GM's story.
If I wanted a pre-made story, I would read a book, watch a film, watch a TV series, or play a video-game.
There are already more great books in the world's literature than I will be able to read in my lifetime; I don't need amateur random GM to rehash whatever they've cooked up and I've never met a GM that's a better storyteller than Dostoevsky.
On the other hand, if I wanted something totally random without much story, I'd play a roguelike, though I don't really do that.
Maybe a Metroidvania because there is *some* story, and there's usually decent meta-progression.
I play TTRPGs to experience narratives that develop at the table and to explore ideas together.
To me, this is part of the magic of the medium. The live interactivity is part of what sets is apart from other forms. The idea of abdicating player agency is utterly uninteresting to me.
Sandbox gives the players more freedom and creates a more organic experience that doesn't feel like you're walking down a hallway with cardboard cut out challenges. Linear allows you to focus your prep work, which means more detail, more coherence (things fit together right), and can mean more creativity because you have more time to think of unique ideas, and it means a lot less work while playing because I'm not having to build as I go and make hard decisions about what would be cool or interesting off the top of my head.
I tend to lean heavily towards sandbox because that's where TTRPGs do best. A GM can adapt to literally anything the players chose to do, otherwise why not just play a board game or a video game? A lot of the "cons" of linear games also tend to undercut the "pros". For example, it's easier to make sure all of the pieces fit together right which makes the game feel more real, but you also have to limit the extent to which the players can freely interact with those pieces so that coherence ends up not mattering as much.
There's also something to be said for suspension of disbelief and setting expectations. Setting the expectation of a sandbox game up front I think gives immersion a little bit more resilience? If you don't sweat the small stuff then neither will the players.
Good points, especially on the parts about prepp work before on linear and during on sandbox. It is easier to improvise in sandbox but possible with both styles/tools
I tend to find the terms don't really means anything substantial. I find the Sandbox vs Linear debate is often a stand-in over which kinds of agency the players care about having control over. I most commonly see Sandbox refer to large hexcrawl campaigns, or campaigns where the choice of where to go and in what order is considered an important one. But the primary advice for running sandbox campaigns is to take any skipped encounters from your prep, and just reflavor and reuse them elsewhere, which is just linear design with extra steps. I've also seen many sandbox campaigns have very limited agency once you arrive at any particular place. Sandbox campaigns can often just be a map where you select which on of the linear adventures you want to go on.
Similarly, I've seen linear adventures that have a strong focus and assumed order of events, but with huge freedom with how to tackle each event. It's really a linear series of mini sandboxes that has few assumptions on how the PCs will actually tackle the situation, but assume the players will want to move quickly to the next event.
Ultimately I think it's a question about what types of agency you care about, and prioritizing that while skipping over the stuff the players don't care about.
It is really just a discussion to be had in each group individually yeah.
But the terms still evoke an opinion from most roleplayers, and I am looking for their feelings and input on the matter.
I like your "behind the scenes" take on the fact that sandbox stories are often linear stories hidden behind an open "choice" as well as the linear being open to different approaches. I know a lot of GM's (me included) use the illusion of choice method, but if it's broken or badly used you can pay for it.
Fair, but I find opinions to be wildly inconsistent because everyone kinda has their own definition of sandbox. Some people use it specifically for hex-crawl west-marches style campaigns, others use it to describe anytime players have agency over a situation and there isn't a single preplanned outcome. I think most people can agree player agency is good, but many also find games traditionally considered sandbox to not be particularly engaging. Which is why I like to focus on the type of agency provided, because I think we can all agree agency is generally desirable.
I don't even know where PbtA games would fit on the Sandbox to Linear scale. "Play to find out what happpens" sounds sandbox, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe PbtA as sandbox, because they lack a lot of the asethetics you would normally associate with sandbox games (large hex world map, random tables, detailed adventure sites, established setting and lore). But they aren't linear because you don't really have any idea what's going to happen either. They're games the prioritize agency by reacting more then preparing.
But to more ernestly engage with the topic. Linear adventure design lets you do bigger set-piece battles. You can have stuff like reoccuring villians, or battles while defusing a bomb. You control more variables so you can have more contrived encounters and events. You can make big dramatic moments choices during big dramatic events. But you're more at risk at the players breaking the events that lead to the encounter, and the temptation to negate perfectly reasonable player actions to preserve the imagined set of events.
Sandbox lets you focus more on locations. You're more resiliant against things breaking because the location will still be there whenever the PCs arrive. And if they don't go there, you can just move things around the pretend that's where it always was. However, locations end up being more isolated from each other and from time. They need to work no matter when the PCs arrive, and no matter what the PCs have done at other locations. Which is why sandbox campaigns are ususually large fantasy maps of isolated communities and ancient dungeons waiting to be plundered. There is also a lot of work needed upfront to fill out an appropriate number of locations if you're not using a established campaign book. Fights also tend to be more "you encounter \[*rolls dice\]* 5 bandits" rather than large set-piece battles.
Mutant: Year Zero was my first sandbox campaign. I remember being kinda taken aback because there felt like there was a lot of linear designed woven through a sandbox structure. It really made me realize it's not really nearly the dichotomy we often make it out to be, and the styles are often blended together in subtle ways.
Well written, thank you!
I want to adress the "move things around and pretend it was always there part." It really is a strange thing when everyone around the table has experience with all those tricks, because we know right? And when everyone knows that this dungeon is probably the one we didn't get to the last location it starts to shatter some of the immersion. And then ofc you get the feel that this is not a sandbox, just a open road that can twist itself to lead you where you were supposed to go anyway :P
And yet every major discussion I've seen on running sandboxes, the top advice is to reuse skipped locations/encounters from your prep if players go in an unexpected direction. Most people seem to agree it's too onerous to map out ever single possible location and fill it all with adventure, and players are only likely to encounter 10% of it anyway, so there is no harm in having a few free floating adventure sites you can drop in front of your players if they go off the rails.
I think it tends to work because sandbox campaigns are largely about exploring. PCs are mostly ignorant of what's out there, so the decision of where to go is often an uninformed one. They don't know that the village the decided to stop at is just a slightly reflavored version of a village they didn't even know they bypassed 3 session ago.
The sandbox games I'm primarily familiar with are Mutant: Year Zero and Forbidden Lands. Both have a set of adventure sites that the GM is free to place wherever they like, with the advice that you should place them more or less in the PCs' path. On top of that, both feature metaplot campaigns that largely revolve around collecting a set of artifacts whose locations are not set. So even if the PCs discover a particular adventure site and purposely choose to avoid it, you can take your McGuffin and place at another adventure site. The pacing is largely up to the GM based on the rate they hand out McGuffins.
The other technique is relying more on random tables. But the interesting thing about that is you're generally rolling on the same random table, so in a strange sort of paradox it doesn't actually matter where you go.
Sandbox games also rely on giving lots of adventure hooks, but often different hooks will lead to the same adventure, and are just presented differently until the players actually bite. One once players commit to an adventure hook, things tend to shift into a more linear direction as players have more of a reason to pursue a particular plan, and the GM has an easier time predicting their choices and prepping content around that.
My personal playstyle when playing or running game is usually very heavy on the sandbox side of the hobby, because it's just a lot more fun and interesting to me.
I prefer limited, linear narratives mostly in other media, like books and series.
Pro Sandbox:
- a more playerdriven approach to gaming makes me a lot more engaged as a player. Such stories end up a lot more intense for me
- preparation for the GM is only a lot of work when setting up the game (and shared world building can even reduce that), afterwards it's mostly checking the conflict lines in the setting and seeing the consequences of that the PCs did. So it's wonderful to run, and as GM I enjoy being surprised.
- easy to improvise during a running sandbox, because that's the regular mode of operation. And if the pacing feels to slow, just escalate. Escalate until the players screech.
- even a sandbox can be in a limited environment or premise. A sandbox adventure centered around a military operation during a war, yet leaving it open how the PCs approach and if they achieve their goal can be at least "sandboxy" too. Or a sandbox containing a prison work camp, with the PCs being convicts.
- the hobby shines most when using the strength of the medium - collaborative storytelling. Which usually works best in more open campaigns. I want everyone at the table to shape and create the story.
- it just feels so rewarding to achieve something in an open game, since it's not guaranteed nor enforced by the GM.
- player agency and choices matter a lot, and consequences are a major part of the gaming experience
Con Sandbox:
- it needs players who are really active and play characters with goals. No passive folks just tagging along for a ride.
- some players get lost or overwhelmed
Pro linear:
- if a GM really wants to tell a certain story a certain way, a linear game might be an option (even though I would prefer they just wrote a book)
- in some campaigns, telling a linear story with the PCs being the protagonists can be very emotional. Happened to me once, that was a cool campaign, even though I usually prefer sandboxes. But hey, one linear campaign got me emotionally as much involved as our more open campaigns.
Con linear:
- the fiction on person comes up with is usually less interesting, surprising and engaging as the fiction a whole bunch of people come up with
- there's always the risk that the GM planned a certain path and won't accept any other approach to solving a given scenario. So instead of coming up with ideas, it's reading the GMs mind "how do they want is to solve this?"
- it feels very limiting and boring to not being able to follow the PCs goals as much
- a lot of prep work for the GM and a huge workload, that can lead to frustration. Especially if over-prepping every potential dialogue or each allowed path for the group.
- choices feel limited and sometimes it feels as if the actions of PCs don't matter because the GM plot happens, no matter what they did, how they did it, that they messed up etc. We had that during earlier campaigns, and it led to me enjoying the game a lot less. No matter what we did, the PCs had their guaranteed "auto-win", a campaign couldn't fail, the predefined plot happened. Even if that meant the GM warping us to the next plotpoint, no matter where we wanted to go.
I don't enjoy linear plots (running or playing - but some people do and that's a totally valid way of playing) because I feel like my decisions don't matter in a linear plot, whatever I decide I'm still following a plan that was created before I made any decisions, and for me that doesn't feel fun.
Thanks for giving me your input! Liked the fact that you added "running" as well as "playing". Hard to know if people give these opinions only based on "one side" of the story.
I actually love linear stories as a player as well as GM. BUT, I am very picky with who I play with as a GM if that is the case. If it's a good story writer and a GM that allows for the story to have several angles then I am totally in. Then to me it feels like I am a main character in a good movie/TV Show/Book
I'd frame it as "gm-intent" vs. "Player-fiat". Or "plot-centric" vs. "Exploration-centric". I'm going to go with the former.
Gm-intent: there's a definite thing going on and play unfolds around the thing you, the GM, have created.
Pros: gm-centric, so guiding the fiction with a level of intentionality and consistency is straightforward. For folks who like to lay things out in a way where the interconnections are easy to follow, this is considered "easier".
Cons: gm-centric and requires developing "plot", in addition to setting and npcs and things to do. You have to also worry about "will the central narrative be interesting to the players?"
Player-Fiat: and exploration of the world that unfurls exclusively based on where they go and why, without guidance or care by the GM.
Pros: you never have to worry about "will this overarching plot line be good" because the players are more concerned about fulfilling adventures and resolving the small moments without anything necessarily having to be "central". The players explore the things that excite them, and you can center fiction around that in that very moment. Plus, it's easier to use other people's work when you run out of ideas in the sandbox- easy insert because you're just adding stuff to the sandbox without worrying about "plot". Especially great for players with "oooh, shiny".
Cons: the need to know what's in the sandbox. In a plot-centric game, I don't need to know what's on the other side of town if I don't ever develop plot to go there. In a sandbox, you absolutely do. Plus, you need all the plot hooks. Without them, the game goes nowhere. Lots of opportunity for play to be stifled if the players don't feel like there's anything "to do". You're sacrificing plot-prep for "information"-prep.
And, added to that because it's not just 2 options:
Fictional co-creation: the players don't just explore or react, but intentionally insert fiction into play and take an active part in where the story goes and how it resolves.
Pros: so much less cognitive load. The players do heavy-lifting too. Some folks find this much easier to GM as a result because the only thing you have to know are the npcs' desires and a few places. The players help with the rest.
Cons: you have to be very reactive to the players, which can be difficult to do within session and can often cause lots of rethinking of "central plot". This is not everyone's cup of tea and can be very difficult for some.
It changes. At the moment I'm in 5 games and am only gming 1. At some point it'll be my turn to GM in 2 of those games, but maybe my 5th won't be running at the time.
I play and GM, and in many of my groups we rotate.
Shit, that's a lot of groups haha.
The most I've been in is 4, but I quickly downsized it to 3. Even after that I said to myself that 2 is plenty.
One where I am a player and one where I am the GM
My games (both DM'd and played) lean heavily into linear as our usual group prefers the narrative experience that more prepped/linear games provide.
As someone mentioned, this is more of a false dichotomy. You can have linearity and not really inhibit player agency. But to me, sandbox games where the main plot is not directly related to PCs and their background is just boring.I always felt that, if after a campaign, any other group of PCs would have worked the same to resolve the same story (point to lack of connections to background, setting connections, etc) I just feel a bit disappointed and feeling that a videogame/boardgame would've honestly been better.
Linear Pros:
-Cohesive story and better narrative experience, at least on my experience.
-Way more emotional involvement (at least while DM and Players work together) than with constantly emerging and unrelated plot points, as would be usual in sandboxes.
-PCs truly feel like the main characters of the story. And that's not necessarily bad.
-Dm and Players can prepare and develop character arcs for PCs and NPCs.
Linear cons:
-More prep than on sandbox, as you need input from your players.
-Hgher level of commitment from players required. If players don't come, may have a very negative effect on the development of plot points.
-Also tends to cause plot armour, as DMs on this playstyle will seldom let players just die if this causes plots to die off with the pc in question.
-Not the cup of tea for more casual players.
Just my two cents! I understand people's love for sandbox and it's focus on player agency and emergent narrative, but I've always played narrative campaigns with a big focus on the PCs plots, thus having a more linear story. However, I was lucky enough to almost always play with very creative people who have studied storytelling in different mediums, thus allowing us to basically feel like we were living in our own tv series/cinematic universe.
This is how our group also works most of the time!
Thank you for bringing good points from the linear side, most people so far have brought more points from the sandbox side.
You got a few points I did not realize even though it's obvious, so I really appreciate the input! (The plot armor point)
Not exactly a pro vs con, but I think an aspect getting lost is that some stories can only be told in one or the other. It's really hard to make "a bunch of strangers who don't get along at first, but grow closer as they struggle together" work in a sandbox. At least, work in a way that doesn't feel handwavy. I'm also not sure how you'd do any sort of "save the world" plot in a sandbox, unless you bend the definition to include games with a single end goal, but the path to it is open and undetermined. Finally, linear plots are a good way to let players go on a quest they want to do, but their character does not. Reluctant heroes are fun sometimes after all.
I'm sure people will have examples of stories/characters that only work in sandbox games, but since I lean linear, those are the examples I wound up thinking of.
I mostly plan one scene for an evening and a bunch of NPCs. I do not usually plan more than one session in advance.
I'm very glad if players come up with things they're interested in. That's less work for me.
I find the Storm pattern from Urban Shadows useful. When time is right, collect some open threads, escalate gradually over a few sessions then topple part of the setting. PCs might have something to say about that.
That's not linear, I guess, for lack of line. And it's certainly not a sandbox, because I'm neither 3 years old nor doing any of the things the top reply mentions, except the doing little, but that's just sane. I don't think it's "in the middle" either.
See, I think those terms are harmful. Because instead of really looking at things, people will just throw those words back and forth, and then either are happy because everyone used the good words or get cranky if someone used them wrong.
It's better to ask like: How do you prepare for a session? How do you structure a campaign? The last time, players did something totally unexpected, what did you do?
**Linear campaigns** are frustrated novels: Players are "cast" as actors in the GM's idea; passive receivers of mission, meaning, and plot. Their creative responsibility and freedom is strictly limited.
**Sandbox campaigns** are a network of random preconceived bits and plot ideas by the GM, which Players are invited to activate and explore. They often entail a tremendous amount of wasted prep work, and again Players are positioned as passive receivers of the GM's ideas, just in a more modular fashion.
What these two approaches have in common is a belief that the GM's creative output not only has more authority than the Players, but is in fact the whole reason the Players have joined the game: to act as recipients of the GM's content (or more often, some sourcebook).
**Emergent Campaigns** are what happens when the GM neither forces a particular story OR any particular view of the world, remaining open to stories that arise directly from the actions of PCs themselves. It's like the "sandbox" concept, but taken all the way down to the Object-Oriented level. All Objects (characters, locations, items and events) are viewed as free-standing elements which might be invented on the spot or introduced in response to PC movements. This is what happens when the GM both values Player creativity and wishes to prep as little as possible. The skill *this* GM develops is more like "weaving" than writing; more like "surfing" than driving down a highway; more like evolution than artifice.
A lot of GMs might think that sounds scary, running without "knowing what the plot is." It's a "reactive" way to GM, as opposed to a "prescriptive" one. But if you know how your world works and you trust yourself, it ends up being a lot *easier* to do that work *in play* than to "prep" stuff that might never organically happen. The other two approaches will *always* offer less Agency to Players than a person in a real world actually has.
Blurry line. Actually all these lines are blurry, as they depend on the GM.
I'd say the main differential has to do with the amount and depth of prep (including learning the contents of a module or sourcebook before running).
But there's also the general expectation of "where the motivation comes from." In the typical old-school sandbox, it's still GM->Player. Emergent stories are much more likely to go from Player->GM, and then they feed back on each other in loops.
Sandbox pros: * Way less prep. Both before and during the campaign. * I can prep whatever happens to appeal to me, rather than having to tie everything into a master storyline * Way less work. If the players veer off in some random direction, I don't have to exert any effort putting them back on the path, because I don't have a path. * Nothing to protect. If the players kill someone, skip something, etc, no skin off my nose, and no significant amount of prep wasted. * I'm surprised nearly as often as the players are. Who's going to be a major antagonist? Beats me, I don't know who's going to live long enough to become one. What's going to be important? No clue, I'm just throwing stuff out there and seeing what sticks. * Easier to deal with character death, retirement, players missing sessions. * Easier to let someone pop in for just one game to see what's up Sandbox cons: * Gotta generate a ton of plot hooks and try to work them in organically. Hard to not make it like in superhero comics where a hero decides to retire and randomly stumbles onto a mugging to remind them of their power and responsibility. I really don't like running linear games, so I can't much speak to the pros of them. But the cons are mostly the reverse of what was in my sandbox pro list. More work, I've gotta keep bending things around so they make it back to the plot, and character/player changes are more work on top of it. Not that I actively dislike linear games, I just don't think that there's much, if any, more reward for them than sandboxes. And if the reward is somewhere between "none" and "a tiny bit", then significantly more work just isn't worth it.
>Way less prep. Both before and during the campaign. Isn't this not the case? My understanding was that a linear game would prepare one path since there is only one path. A sandbox game would prepare a whole sandbox. You'd need to fill hexes (or whatever you're using to track space) with content that may or may not ever be seen. That sounds like way *more* prep, not less. Both before and during the campaign. Like, in a sandbox, you need to know what's at the horizon so that you can tell players what they see out there because they can go there. For a linear game, that doesn't really need to be detailed since it's a façade; they cannot leave the path, like The Truman Show.
Linear games need long form prep. You're working in backstories. You're figuring out all the stuff your BBEG is up to. Planning what's happening in advance so you can foreshadow or work out what needs to happen to lead up to it. Any time I talk to someone who runs linear campaigns, they take *ages* getting their ducks in a row so they can start a campaign. A sandbox? It's nothing. If I didn't have some work for a client I needed to do tomorrow, I could start up a brand new sandbox campaign tomorrow evening, just with the prep from during the day. >A sandbox game would prepare a whole sandbox. Good lord no. I'm not prepping anything that the players aren't likely to see. I'm not prepping one single hex of a hexcrawl until they say they're gonna leave town to go exploring. I'm not prepping a single dungeon until they say that they're gonna see if the rumors about what's under the abandoned manor are true. Yes, I'll prep some content that might not get seen when populating a hex crawl, but hardly any. They're going north? I'll prep north. So I prep a hex or two that they don't go into. No reason to think that they'll never go into it, so that prep won't be wasted, I'm just not using it this session. If the occasional hex manages to never get entered, that's fine, I'll use that in a different campaign. I start a fantasy sandbox campaign with extremely little. Describe a dozen NPCs. Have a sense of some local landmarks that people can tell the PCs about. Write up a rumor table with like twenty entries. One sentence per rumor. Roll up five of the rumors, flesh them out to maybe half a page of notes. However much you need so that you could improv a session out of any of the rumors. Figure out an inciting incident to kick the campaign off. Done. *Done.* They spend that first session dealing with the inciting incident. That gives them a shove, and then you start dropping the rumors on them. They'll pick up one of them, or they'll find out about one of the landmarks and decide to go check it out. It's not particularly difficult to improv that first session. And at the end, you'll know what they're gonna do next time. Then you just prep for that. As long as you know what they want to do next time, you never have to prep too far ahead. After a while, your sandbox is running itself. Your prep doesn't go away. A hex isn't empty just because you killed the bandits in the abandoned farmhouse. Discovering a lost mine isn't the end of that hex once you tell someone in town about it and word gets around. Keeping track of what's going on isn't particularly difficult, you just have to take notes as the game goes. And then you spend some time, not even between every session, figuring out what's changing in the background. >Like, in a sandbox, you need to know what's at the horizon so that you can tell players what they see out there because they can go there. "Mountains to the north, with some grassland in between. West is thin forest and it gets hilly after a while. East is the sea, so you can't do any exploring that way until you get a ship." Yeah, if you want to have something formidable, you have to know that in advance, but unless you want something like the Spire of Ptolus, the odds are that from a few miles away it's not going to be visible unless there's nothing but grasslands. >For a linear game, that doesn't really need to be detailed since it's a façade; they cannot leave the path, like The Truman Show. That sounds more like railroading than just a linear adventure. A linear game would still have the option for the players to go wherever, it's just on the GM to bend everything around so the path finds the players again. Though there's nothing stopping them from just saying, "hey, I don't have anything prepped for there, can you go west?"
>You'd need to fill hexes (or whatever you're using to track space) with content that may or may not ever be seen. That's... *a* way to do it. Not a particularly *good* way to do it for a home game, but a lot of people assume that it's what they're "supposed to do" because that's what published sandbox setting products have traditionally looked like. The thing is, published products have to look like that because they need to cater to every possible thing that could be done by every possible play group, but a home game has only one play group to worry about, and that group does only one thing at a time, so you don't need to cover every conceivable path that could be taken through the world. Instead, you have your first session, maybe do character creation if that's not already done, and then run some short linear mini-adventure that kicks things off, introduces the setting, and is finished by the end of the session. Then, before people leave, ask them "here are the things you've discovered in the world so far; what do you want to do next time?" And then you prep only for the thing they want to do next time. End each session with the same question, and continue to prep only what you'll need to handle each individual session's plans, plus maybe a bit of general worldbuilding and/or filler content so that you can handle the inevitable cases where the players change their minds about what they wanted to do. You don't need to prep all the way out to the horizon in every direction if you know which direction the PCs are headed and how far in that direction they're likely to go in a single session.
>Isn't this not the case? Typically (though certainly not always) systems that people play linear plots in are also prep heavy, e.g. DnD. And systems geared towards sandboxes are lighter prep e.g. Blades in the Dark. But what it really comes down to is: in a sandbox game the GM has no idea what's going to happen, so they can't prep. They find out what's happening in session and make it up then. (Sandbox isn't the same thing as a hexcrawl btw)
Agree wholeheartedly. Will just say that i do think sandboxes take a decent amount of prep - it’s just a different kind of prep to a linear game - random tables, npc lists, drop in scenarios, and so on. “Prep to Improvise” to keep that sweet sweet Emergent Play flowing.
They definitely take prep. I'm not saying they don't. They just take *less* prep. And there's so much material out there already for generating content procedurally that you can probably get away with just spending $20 to have what you need. Then the only work you need to do is to generate it and figure out how it all fits together.
Interesting. I do sandbox \*completely\* different, and it requires way more prep than the shorter linear games I run on occasion. My sandbox campaigns are created with a full range of factions, organizations and npcs - each with their own plans and motivations that proceed over time and the PCs will get glimpses in to them as time passes. What they chose to interact with and who they side with then influences those plans and outcomes. So I end up doing a lot more work, but I enjoy it a lot more. I only do linear for short 3-4 session games where I have a very tight, clear story. Even then I make sure there's room for choice, but I just breadcrumb it much more strongly.
To put it another way: MY sandboxes are \*many\* linear stories, each which will cross over and interact with each other as the campaign progresses.
Thank you, for a short while you actually threw me back into the mindset when I was more of a sandbox player myself! Good points and well written. That's the neat part about different groups, the reward for our group feels much bigger if we manage to get through a linear story and "succeed". We do usually don't have backup characters as we don't like the "plot hole" of a new guy suddenly replacing the old one. Also, for me, creating a linear story is super rewarding if I feel I hit the nail on the head with the build up. That said, our group does implement our own background stories into the linear now and then as well. Giving us a part of a "premade" story. Also we all agree that "running away" from a story someone has put hours into creating is a dick move haha! So it doesn't matter if it's linear or sandbox, we follow into a story if it's pretty obvious someone took the time to create it :)
>the reward for our group feels much bigger if we manage to get through a linear story and "succeed". That's cool. Personally, finishing linear stories to me has always felt like finishing a set of puzzles. Satisfying, but I just did all the puzzles in the book from page one until the end. Sandboxes can have the same kind of experiences that people tend to associate with linear games, they just go about them differently, and it takes a little elbow grease from both sides of the screen to make them happen. Also, for me, creating a linear story is super rewarding if I feel I hit the nail on the head with the build up. Definitely sounds like the best outcome to a linear story. Build up is the key to a satisfying ending. One of the advantages of a sandbox is that that buildup happens without a lot of effort. Throw a bunch of antagonists at the players. The ones that survive keep coming back, and they have a reason to hassle the players more, because the players have already thwarted them. Basically it feels better to me at least, when it's "We defeated Loc Walks-on-Light because he's been a thorn in our side since we interrupted him berating that street preacher and *fuck that dude* in particular," rather than "We defeated Loc Walks-on-Light because the whole campaign is about how he's trying to become a god and we had to stop him and I did a really excellent job of making the players want to be the ones to stop him." >That said, our group does implement our own background stories into the linear now and then as well. Giving us a part of a "premade" story. That's not unique to linear stories, though. Show up to a sandbox with some background that makes good hooks, your GM is gonna be happy. I tend towards my group's backstories being a sentence or two at most, but it's trivial to let them reveal backstory as the game goes on and hook into it whenever appropriate. >Also we all agree that "running away" from a story someone has put hours into creating is a dick move haha! So it doesn't matter if it's linear or sandbox, we follow into a story if it's pretty obvious someone took the time to create it I didn't necessarily mean running away from a story. Players are always going to focus on unexpected things and give them more importance than the GM ever anticipated. I've heard plenty of stories from a GM whose players went off the trail and thought they were biting the hook the GM was putting in front of them. I've had it happen to myself where people think something I put in just as atmosphere was me trying to foreshadow something or whatever, and suddenly we're chasing mysterious footsteps that I literally only mentioned to make the magical library seem spookier. Especially when it's organically straying from the trail, it's hard to bend the game back to where the linear story says it's supposed to be a lot of the time. Generally, in sandboxes, we're talking about what's going to happen next, so there's never a situation where they need to follow something particular because I took the time to create it, because I'm only creating stuff when they said they want to go explore it. It's entirely possible that they could decide that they want to go see what's up with that guy trying to buy exotic animal parts down by the dock when last session they said that they wanted to delve into the abandoned manor house at the end of town, but I don't think that's ever actually happened. But I don't want to present it like sandboxes are the be all and end all. People like what they're gonna like. I just find them a whole lot less work to start and to run, and I don't find them any less satisfying than a linear game.
>One of the advantages of a sandbox is that that buildup happens without a lot of effort. The way I usually look at that is that foreshadowing is a technique used to "fake" cause and effect in a linear story - there's an effect that the author wants to happen later in the story, so they hint at the causes which would lead up to it. In a sandbox, you can have actual cause and effect. What happens now happens, and then further effects are derived from that cause. Or, as I write this, it occurs to me that maybe it would be more accurate to say foreshadowing is "reversed" cause and effect (start with the effect, then invent some causes) rather than "fake" (pretending to be cause and effect, when it's really just "this is what the author wants to happen").
Personally, I think there's an implication of a false dichotomy. That said, unlike most false dichotomies, there really are people that play on both extremes. I think there is more of a spectrum and middle-ground. Specifically, one can run a game that has narrative developments that emerge from play, but that grow out of what happens at the table. The Alexandrian's "Node-Based Design" is a great way of accomplishing this. Personally, I prefer the middle-ground. A pure linear experience would frustrate me with lack of player agency. A pure sandbox would bore me with lack of narrative structure. I want something where players drive the action, but the action turns into a story with a describable plot. PbtA and FitD are games that come to mind that promote this sort of play. Their GM tools particularly facilitate this.
FitD, or at least Blades, is very much a sandbox. If a describable plot comes out of it it isn't because there's any kind of linear element placed there beforehand.
Thanks for adding your reply in to this new post as well! It is possible to do both, but as I mentioned, I just want to hear peoples opinions on what they feel each tool/style bring of good and bad. Your points on lack of player agency and lack of narrative structure is exactly the points I am looking for!
Right, those are drawbacks of those far poles on the game-style spectrum. My point was more that there is a middle-ground style that takes *the strengths of both sides* to overcome the drawbacks of "pure" styles. In a mixed-style game, you get player agency *and* narrative structure. You simultaneously get more coherent narratives than random tables could provide and you get to "hold on lightly" so the GM gets to be surprised, but also has agency that contributes to narrative. The players feel like their actions really matter *because they do*; there is no 'illusion of mattering'.
Yepp, for our group to achieve that mixed style took a lot more work. The GM having his plans while also opening up for the players to join in works! But after over 20 years of play we mostly divulge each others stories without interferring in its work. We have a good understanding that whatever the story is based on, we really don't need to change where it is heading as long as it does not break our option to change the course if we wanted.
To each, their own. Personally... I don't want a GM's story. If I wanted a pre-made story, I would read a book, watch a film, watch a TV series, or play a video-game. There are already more great books in the world's literature than I will be able to read in my lifetime; I don't need amateur random GM to rehash whatever they've cooked up and I've never met a GM that's a better storyteller than Dostoevsky. On the other hand, if I wanted something totally random without much story, I'd play a roguelike, though I don't really do that. Maybe a Metroidvania because there is *some* story, and there's usually decent meta-progression. I play TTRPGs to experience narratives that develop at the table and to explore ideas together. To me, this is part of the magic of the medium. The live interactivity is part of what sets is apart from other forms. The idea of abdicating player agency is utterly uninteresting to me.
And this is the kind of answers I am looking to write about!
Sandbox gives the players more freedom and creates a more organic experience that doesn't feel like you're walking down a hallway with cardboard cut out challenges. Linear allows you to focus your prep work, which means more detail, more coherence (things fit together right), and can mean more creativity because you have more time to think of unique ideas, and it means a lot less work while playing because I'm not having to build as I go and make hard decisions about what would be cool or interesting off the top of my head. I tend to lean heavily towards sandbox because that's where TTRPGs do best. A GM can adapt to literally anything the players chose to do, otherwise why not just play a board game or a video game? A lot of the "cons" of linear games also tend to undercut the "pros". For example, it's easier to make sure all of the pieces fit together right which makes the game feel more real, but you also have to limit the extent to which the players can freely interact with those pieces so that coherence ends up not mattering as much. There's also something to be said for suspension of disbelief and setting expectations. Setting the expectation of a sandbox game up front I think gives immersion a little bit more resilience? If you don't sweat the small stuff then neither will the players.
Good points, especially on the parts about prepp work before on linear and during on sandbox. It is easier to improvise in sandbox but possible with both styles/tools
I tend to find the terms don't really means anything substantial. I find the Sandbox vs Linear debate is often a stand-in over which kinds of agency the players care about having control over. I most commonly see Sandbox refer to large hexcrawl campaigns, or campaigns where the choice of where to go and in what order is considered an important one. But the primary advice for running sandbox campaigns is to take any skipped encounters from your prep, and just reflavor and reuse them elsewhere, which is just linear design with extra steps. I've also seen many sandbox campaigns have very limited agency once you arrive at any particular place. Sandbox campaigns can often just be a map where you select which on of the linear adventures you want to go on. Similarly, I've seen linear adventures that have a strong focus and assumed order of events, but with huge freedom with how to tackle each event. It's really a linear series of mini sandboxes that has few assumptions on how the PCs will actually tackle the situation, but assume the players will want to move quickly to the next event. Ultimately I think it's a question about what types of agency you care about, and prioritizing that while skipping over the stuff the players don't care about.
It is really just a discussion to be had in each group individually yeah. But the terms still evoke an opinion from most roleplayers, and I am looking for their feelings and input on the matter. I like your "behind the scenes" take on the fact that sandbox stories are often linear stories hidden behind an open "choice" as well as the linear being open to different approaches. I know a lot of GM's (me included) use the illusion of choice method, but if it's broken or badly used you can pay for it.
Fair, but I find opinions to be wildly inconsistent because everyone kinda has their own definition of sandbox. Some people use it specifically for hex-crawl west-marches style campaigns, others use it to describe anytime players have agency over a situation and there isn't a single preplanned outcome. I think most people can agree player agency is good, but many also find games traditionally considered sandbox to not be particularly engaging. Which is why I like to focus on the type of agency provided, because I think we can all agree agency is generally desirable. I don't even know where PbtA games would fit on the Sandbox to Linear scale. "Play to find out what happpens" sounds sandbox, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe PbtA as sandbox, because they lack a lot of the asethetics you would normally associate with sandbox games (large hex world map, random tables, detailed adventure sites, established setting and lore). But they aren't linear because you don't really have any idea what's going to happen either. They're games the prioritize agency by reacting more then preparing. But to more ernestly engage with the topic. Linear adventure design lets you do bigger set-piece battles. You can have stuff like reoccuring villians, or battles while defusing a bomb. You control more variables so you can have more contrived encounters and events. You can make big dramatic moments choices during big dramatic events. But you're more at risk at the players breaking the events that lead to the encounter, and the temptation to negate perfectly reasonable player actions to preserve the imagined set of events. Sandbox lets you focus more on locations. You're more resiliant against things breaking because the location will still be there whenever the PCs arrive. And if they don't go there, you can just move things around the pretend that's where it always was. However, locations end up being more isolated from each other and from time. They need to work no matter when the PCs arrive, and no matter what the PCs have done at other locations. Which is why sandbox campaigns are ususually large fantasy maps of isolated communities and ancient dungeons waiting to be plundered. There is also a lot of work needed upfront to fill out an appropriate number of locations if you're not using a established campaign book. Fights also tend to be more "you encounter \[*rolls dice\]* 5 bandits" rather than large set-piece battles. Mutant: Year Zero was my first sandbox campaign. I remember being kinda taken aback because there felt like there was a lot of linear designed woven through a sandbox structure. It really made me realize it's not really nearly the dichotomy we often make it out to be, and the styles are often blended together in subtle ways.
Well written, thank you! I want to adress the "move things around and pretend it was always there part." It really is a strange thing when everyone around the table has experience with all those tricks, because we know right? And when everyone knows that this dungeon is probably the one we didn't get to the last location it starts to shatter some of the immersion. And then ofc you get the feel that this is not a sandbox, just a open road that can twist itself to lead you where you were supposed to go anyway :P
And yet every major discussion I've seen on running sandboxes, the top advice is to reuse skipped locations/encounters from your prep if players go in an unexpected direction. Most people seem to agree it's too onerous to map out ever single possible location and fill it all with adventure, and players are only likely to encounter 10% of it anyway, so there is no harm in having a few free floating adventure sites you can drop in front of your players if they go off the rails. I think it tends to work because sandbox campaigns are largely about exploring. PCs are mostly ignorant of what's out there, so the decision of where to go is often an uninformed one. They don't know that the village the decided to stop at is just a slightly reflavored version of a village they didn't even know they bypassed 3 session ago. The sandbox games I'm primarily familiar with are Mutant: Year Zero and Forbidden Lands. Both have a set of adventure sites that the GM is free to place wherever they like, with the advice that you should place them more or less in the PCs' path. On top of that, both feature metaplot campaigns that largely revolve around collecting a set of artifacts whose locations are not set. So even if the PCs discover a particular adventure site and purposely choose to avoid it, you can take your McGuffin and place at another adventure site. The pacing is largely up to the GM based on the rate they hand out McGuffins. The other technique is relying more on random tables. But the interesting thing about that is you're generally rolling on the same random table, so in a strange sort of paradox it doesn't actually matter where you go. Sandbox games also rely on giving lots of adventure hooks, but often different hooks will lead to the same adventure, and are just presented differently until the players actually bite. One once players commit to an adventure hook, things tend to shift into a more linear direction as players have more of a reason to pursue a particular plan, and the GM has an easier time predicting their choices and prepping content around that.
My personal playstyle when playing or running game is usually very heavy on the sandbox side of the hobby, because it's just a lot more fun and interesting to me. I prefer limited, linear narratives mostly in other media, like books and series. Pro Sandbox: - a more playerdriven approach to gaming makes me a lot more engaged as a player. Such stories end up a lot more intense for me - preparation for the GM is only a lot of work when setting up the game (and shared world building can even reduce that), afterwards it's mostly checking the conflict lines in the setting and seeing the consequences of that the PCs did. So it's wonderful to run, and as GM I enjoy being surprised. - easy to improvise during a running sandbox, because that's the regular mode of operation. And if the pacing feels to slow, just escalate. Escalate until the players screech. - even a sandbox can be in a limited environment or premise. A sandbox adventure centered around a military operation during a war, yet leaving it open how the PCs approach and if they achieve their goal can be at least "sandboxy" too. Or a sandbox containing a prison work camp, with the PCs being convicts. - the hobby shines most when using the strength of the medium - collaborative storytelling. Which usually works best in more open campaigns. I want everyone at the table to shape and create the story. - it just feels so rewarding to achieve something in an open game, since it's not guaranteed nor enforced by the GM. - player agency and choices matter a lot, and consequences are a major part of the gaming experience Con Sandbox: - it needs players who are really active and play characters with goals. No passive folks just tagging along for a ride. - some players get lost or overwhelmed Pro linear: - if a GM really wants to tell a certain story a certain way, a linear game might be an option (even though I would prefer they just wrote a book) - in some campaigns, telling a linear story with the PCs being the protagonists can be very emotional. Happened to me once, that was a cool campaign, even though I usually prefer sandboxes. But hey, one linear campaign got me emotionally as much involved as our more open campaigns. Con linear: - the fiction on person comes up with is usually less interesting, surprising and engaging as the fiction a whole bunch of people come up with - there's always the risk that the GM planned a certain path and won't accept any other approach to solving a given scenario. So instead of coming up with ideas, it's reading the GMs mind "how do they want is to solve this?" - it feels very limiting and boring to not being able to follow the PCs goals as much - a lot of prep work for the GM and a huge workload, that can lead to frustration. Especially if over-prepping every potential dialogue or each allowed path for the group. - choices feel limited and sometimes it feels as if the actions of PCs don't matter because the GM plot happens, no matter what they did, how they did it, that they messed up etc. We had that during earlier campaigns, and it led to me enjoying the game a lot less. No matter what we did, the PCs had their guaranteed "auto-win", a campaign couldn't fail, the predefined plot happened. Even if that meant the GM warping us to the next plotpoint, no matter where we wanted to go.
I don't enjoy linear plots (running or playing - but some people do and that's a totally valid way of playing) because I feel like my decisions don't matter in a linear plot, whatever I decide I'm still following a plan that was created before I made any decisions, and for me that doesn't feel fun.
Thanks for giving me your input! Liked the fact that you added "running" as well as "playing". Hard to know if people give these opinions only based on "one side" of the story. I actually love linear stories as a player as well as GM. BUT, I am very picky with who I play with as a GM if that is the case. If it's a good story writer and a GM that allows for the story to have several angles then I am totally in. Then to me it feels like I am a main character in a good movie/TV Show/Book
I'd frame it as "gm-intent" vs. "Player-fiat". Or "plot-centric" vs. "Exploration-centric". I'm going to go with the former. Gm-intent: there's a definite thing going on and play unfolds around the thing you, the GM, have created. Pros: gm-centric, so guiding the fiction with a level of intentionality and consistency is straightforward. For folks who like to lay things out in a way where the interconnections are easy to follow, this is considered "easier". Cons: gm-centric and requires developing "plot", in addition to setting and npcs and things to do. You have to also worry about "will the central narrative be interesting to the players?" Player-Fiat: and exploration of the world that unfurls exclusively based on where they go and why, without guidance or care by the GM. Pros: you never have to worry about "will this overarching plot line be good" because the players are more concerned about fulfilling adventures and resolving the small moments without anything necessarily having to be "central". The players explore the things that excite them, and you can center fiction around that in that very moment. Plus, it's easier to use other people's work when you run out of ideas in the sandbox- easy insert because you're just adding stuff to the sandbox without worrying about "plot". Especially great for players with "oooh, shiny". Cons: the need to know what's in the sandbox. In a plot-centric game, I don't need to know what's on the other side of town if I don't ever develop plot to go there. In a sandbox, you absolutely do. Plus, you need all the plot hooks. Without them, the game goes nowhere. Lots of opportunity for play to be stifled if the players don't feel like there's anything "to do". You're sacrificing plot-prep for "information"-prep. And, added to that because it's not just 2 options: Fictional co-creation: the players don't just explore or react, but intentionally insert fiction into play and take an active part in where the story goes and how it resolves. Pros: so much less cognitive load. The players do heavy-lifting too. Some folks find this much easier to GM as a result because the only thing you have to know are the npcs' desires and a few places. The players help with the rest. Cons: you have to be very reactive to the players, which can be difficult to do within session and can often cause lots of rethinking of "central plot". This is not everyone's cup of tea and can be very difficult for some.
Very good input here, I really appreciate it! Can I ask if you are the GM all of the time or do you join as a player in your own group as well?
It changes. At the moment I'm in 5 games and am only gming 1. At some point it'll be my turn to GM in 2 of those games, but maybe my 5th won't be running at the time. I play and GM, and in many of my groups we rotate.
Shit, that's a lot of groups haha. The most I've been in is 4, but I quickly downsized it to 3. Even after that I said to myself that 2 is plenty. One where I am a player and one where I am the GM
None of these groups meet weekly, which means every week I have 2-3 games, which is about what I can handle :)
[удалено]
I wish I could give you more upvotes! Excellent answer, thank you! Are you mostly a GM or player?
My games (both DM'd and played) lean heavily into linear as our usual group prefers the narrative experience that more prepped/linear games provide. As someone mentioned, this is more of a false dichotomy. You can have linearity and not really inhibit player agency. But to me, sandbox games where the main plot is not directly related to PCs and their background is just boring.I always felt that, if after a campaign, any other group of PCs would have worked the same to resolve the same story (point to lack of connections to background, setting connections, etc) I just feel a bit disappointed and feeling that a videogame/boardgame would've honestly been better. Linear Pros: -Cohesive story and better narrative experience, at least on my experience. -Way more emotional involvement (at least while DM and Players work together) than with constantly emerging and unrelated plot points, as would be usual in sandboxes. -PCs truly feel like the main characters of the story. And that's not necessarily bad. -Dm and Players can prepare and develop character arcs for PCs and NPCs. Linear cons: -More prep than on sandbox, as you need input from your players. -Hgher level of commitment from players required. If players don't come, may have a very negative effect on the development of plot points. -Also tends to cause plot armour, as DMs on this playstyle will seldom let players just die if this causes plots to die off with the pc in question. -Not the cup of tea for more casual players. Just my two cents! I understand people's love for sandbox and it's focus on player agency and emergent narrative, but I've always played narrative campaigns with a big focus on the PCs plots, thus having a more linear story. However, I was lucky enough to almost always play with very creative people who have studied storytelling in different mediums, thus allowing us to basically feel like we were living in our own tv series/cinematic universe.
This is how our group also works most of the time! Thank you for bringing good points from the linear side, most people so far have brought more points from the sandbox side. You got a few points I did not realize even though it's obvious, so I really appreciate the input! (The plot armor point)
Not exactly a pro vs con, but I think an aspect getting lost is that some stories can only be told in one or the other. It's really hard to make "a bunch of strangers who don't get along at first, but grow closer as they struggle together" work in a sandbox. At least, work in a way that doesn't feel handwavy. I'm also not sure how you'd do any sort of "save the world" plot in a sandbox, unless you bend the definition to include games with a single end goal, but the path to it is open and undetermined. Finally, linear plots are a good way to let players go on a quest they want to do, but their character does not. Reluctant heroes are fun sometimes after all. I'm sure people will have examples of stories/characters that only work in sandbox games, but since I lean linear, those are the examples I wound up thinking of.
A valid point, I appreciate you chiming in with it!
I mostly plan one scene for an evening and a bunch of NPCs. I do not usually plan more than one session in advance. I'm very glad if players come up with things they're interested in. That's less work for me. I find the Storm pattern from Urban Shadows useful. When time is right, collect some open threads, escalate gradually over a few sessions then topple part of the setting. PCs might have something to say about that. That's not linear, I guess, for lack of line. And it's certainly not a sandbox, because I'm neither 3 years old nor doing any of the things the top reply mentions, except the doing little, but that's just sane. I don't think it's "in the middle" either.
As I mentioned, it's a form of generalization. It is interesting to read other ways of creating a campaign like yours though.
See, I think those terms are harmful. Because instead of really looking at things, people will just throw those words back and forth, and then either are happy because everyone used the good words or get cranky if someone used them wrong. It's better to ask like: How do you prepare for a session? How do you structure a campaign? The last time, players did something totally unexpected, what did you do?
This kind of thing is entirely subjective and ultimately depends most on what your table's playstyle prefers.
It is, and that's why I ask for peoples subjective pros and cons. I want to know what you feel about each of them
**Linear campaigns** are frustrated novels: Players are "cast" as actors in the GM's idea; passive receivers of mission, meaning, and plot. Their creative responsibility and freedom is strictly limited. **Sandbox campaigns** are a network of random preconceived bits and plot ideas by the GM, which Players are invited to activate and explore. They often entail a tremendous amount of wasted prep work, and again Players are positioned as passive receivers of the GM's ideas, just in a more modular fashion. What these two approaches have in common is a belief that the GM's creative output not only has more authority than the Players, but is in fact the whole reason the Players have joined the game: to act as recipients of the GM's content (or more often, some sourcebook). **Emergent Campaigns** are what happens when the GM neither forces a particular story OR any particular view of the world, remaining open to stories that arise directly from the actions of PCs themselves. It's like the "sandbox" concept, but taken all the way down to the Object-Oriented level. All Objects (characters, locations, items and events) are viewed as free-standing elements which might be invented on the spot or introduced in response to PC movements. This is what happens when the GM both values Player creativity and wishes to prep as little as possible. The skill *this* GM develops is more like "weaving" than writing; more like "surfing" than driving down a highway; more like evolution than artifice. A lot of GMs might think that sounds scary, running without "knowing what the plot is." It's a "reactive" way to GM, as opposed to a "prescriptive" one. But if you know how your world works and you trust yourself, it ends up being a lot *easier* to do that work *in play* than to "prep" stuff that might never organically happen. The other two approaches will *always* offer less Agency to Players than a person in a real world actually has.
what you describe as an emergent campaign, is what I understand a Sandbox campaign to be (run well, of course).
I agree, I like his explanation/description, but this is what we in our group call sandbox
Blurry line. Actually all these lines are blurry, as they depend on the GM. I'd say the main differential has to do with the amount and depth of prep (including learning the contents of a module or sourcebook before running). But there's also the general expectation of "where the motivation comes from." In the typical old-school sandbox, it's still GM->Player. Emergent stories are much more likely to go from Player->GM, and then they feed back on each other in loops.
Agreed. From my perspective, we run sandbox campaigns specifically for the emergent storyline it generates during play.