There are a variety of ways to run games. Today I wanted to get some fellow GM opinions on Sandboxes, those games where the players aren't thrown onto a narrative golden brick road and led through the colorful landscape, but are instead dropped into said landscape and told to blaze their own trail.

So how does one ensure the best sandbox experiences? What tools are in your tool box and what levers do you add?

For myself, I've so far used the following:

1) A job thread, ensuring there are always at least three clear hooks they can pursue.
2) Multiple avenues to earn rewards.

Do any of the other GMs here have experience with running sandbox games? What did you feel was most successful about it? What parts do you think fell flat? What tricks did you use to keep things moving along without players getting lost or directionless?

I take a collaborative approach. I ask the players to tell me about the world or area they are playing in and we explore the things they bring up. That way I don't spend time creating things that don't interest them and will never impact them.

1. An initial hook or direction. The players should have a clear idea of what their long term goal is, or what kind of long term goals are available, even if they have to come up with "how" on their own.

For a game set in an old west town, for example, maybe they might explore the surrounding terrain. Or improve relationships with the local natives. Or conquer the local natives. Or get rich. Or become the best known gunslinger in the west. Or get elected sheriff and clean up the corruption. Or serve the local oil baron by corrupting the town.

Give people some ideas.

2. Interesting things to discover while pursuing their goals. Seed them with cool stuff.

The best I've seen for sandbox is similar to the way console and computer RPG's do it. Have a bunch of quests, some major, some minor, but allow the players to choose what they want to attempt.

It means more work for you initially, since you have to create story lines that won't all, or even mostly be used. But once the players choose you let them dictate the story. Put some hooks into the story for future possibilities, but let their actions dictate the direction.

After the initial few quest lines, I find sandbox to be the easiest to run, since you are (mostly) just reacting to the players decisions. It also get's rid of most of the problem of the PC's throwing wrenches into your plots. If the plot is dictated by the story the players are telling, they really can't ruin the story by their actions.

finding ways to not have them killed while they play was important for me. different approaches to how to get them 'punished' without death that make sense. this means they can explore and run into difficulties, even get in over their head if they make a mistake, and not have to die and start over (or quit). some examples are selling the character into slavery, or to someone that wants them for some other nefarious purpose (such as a doctor making strange experiments on unwilling subjects, etc.) these get them in trouble if they stray without stopping their game altogether, and lead to other escape-based adventures. otherwise, the gm above who posted that you would have to make stuff that gives them choices, many of which they wont take, is spot on. I would suggest having a number of adventures of various levels, and then let the characters gather rumors or info and then decide what they want to pursue. you let them do this and be ready with non-lethal consequences (good and bad) for their choices. And that is what I think is the essence of submersion for a person running a character (i.e. fun): personal choice and realistic consequences for them.

That's good general advice, too, for non-sandbox games.

I can't recommend slavery as I find that players hate the idea of capture as much as death, if not more. And, come to that, certain other plausible ways for them to fail (deaths of NPCs, for instance) might also be frustrating for the players. But most people have ways they're willing to fail, so a GM should ask them about those ways and focus on those.

An initial adventure certainly helps to kick-start things. Could be as simple as the archetypal 'tavern scene' being subject to a police raid. Will the PCs run or 'come quietly'? Whatever they do will land them in a situation they need to find a way out of.

Making sure they have well-developed characters helps, too, so they have goals and purposes that will motivate them.

The killer for most sandboxes is lack of motivation. If the players don't have motivation built into their character background, or built into the initial scenes, they will just drift around and get bored. One particular danger for sandboxes is lack of GM motivation. If the GM doesn't have a story to tell, and is dependent on the players telling a story, and the players are just drifting around, the whole thing can go down the pan quickly.

I think a series of short railroads can help. If the PCs are drifting, have a street gang assault them, or let them find someone's wallet, something to drag them along for a while and then leave the mini-adventure open-ended, so it can be resolved in different ways.

An over-arching theme can be useful too - the PCs are wanted for a crime they didn't commit, a member of the team went missing without trace, there are alien 'body-snatchers' hiding amongst the population, etc. Just be sure not to pin your theme to a single PC - Fred's sister has been kidnapped - cos you can guarantee that Fred's player will drop out of the game in the first three weeks!

this ties into the idea of immersion for the characters via freedom of choice/realistic consequence, I believe. the more choices a character has that carry noticeable and believable consequences, the more they may invest in their character, and then in my experience, the more they are able to come up with their own motivations.

I think the above poster is correct in that the gm has to have conflict written into the way things work in the world. this  gives characters something to choose, even if its just to stay out of trouble (which may or may not be easy). I prefer not to saddle the characters with too much forced encounters, although sometimes a raid on the tavern by the local militia is a good kick-starter for fun :)

on rpol when I ran my game for five or so years I learned the hard way that even more than with table top gaming, the gm needs to leave every scheduled posting with at least on decision for the group to make. it doesn't have to be anything more important than which inn to sleep at, or where to stable the horses, or what to eat for dinner, where to hide to pick pocket people in the bazaar, etc.  it takes a little bit of extra effort when you post as a gm with this mind, but it helps tremendously in keeping a flow to a sandbox game.

I think sandbox games can be some of the best, but only if the gm is presenting a stable and consistent piece of the world for the characters to play in. building conflict into every part of your gaming world is then paramount. and again, the conflict is anything from who to go to war with, to which alley to hide in from the militia when they raid the tavern.

Would it help to clarify the difference between sandbox and open world? There might be some overlap.
I figure sandbox puts more emphasis player driven, whereas open world is more about the size of where players can go.

Could try to emphasize to incoming players that it is a sandbox game, and that their character should be built accordingly (motivations to do their own things), and they may need to play accordingly (more self driven). Because some people might just see “sandbox” and not think that much about it.
You might find some players are more leaders and others more followers. Could try to get them grouped up accordingly (at least one leader per group).

This is sort of advice for any game, but it would help to keep the size of the game and cast reasonable.
I’ve fallen into the trap of “I’ve got so many players, awesome!” and then realizing I couldn’t handle them all.
Could bring on co-gm’s or helpful players to mitigate the load.

Though it can be tough, you might try to keep all the players in the same general area (like a town or city). Groups are more likely to affect each other and cross paths. If a player ends up alone because of leavers, they can more easily join another group.
Getting plotlines to all entwine to some degree could be nice too.
It might be more of a contained sandbox.

Something I have wanted to try is, tell the players “you make your own hooks/motivations, but they should tie into the plotlines the GM has set up.” That way if players are following the hook of one player, but that player leaves, it can salvaged more easily. Probably helps keep everything together too.

Co-GM's are a bit of a sticky wicket. When using a Co-GM you should do so from the beginning. I've seen it done well, and I've seen it done terribly. Both need to either be already telling the same story, or one needs to be only dealing with one aspect of the game.

I'm currently a Co-GM in a game for a friend of mine, and my sole areas of responsibility is editing the posts. with a small amount of help regarding rules, though I don't make the rulings. I simply edit his and the player's posts for readability and grammar. (My friend has speech issues and asked for that help.)

I've seen games with Co-GM's that were able to work well, and other's that died from GM infighting/confusion. The ones that worked well were those that followed the rules above. I believe that the key to a success in that situation is the same as in most. Communication.

Good point. The more emphasis, the better, though it doesn't always work. I've had games where I've driven home the concept of self-motivation, and the players have still drifted. I think it's largely pot-luck on getting the right bunch of players together. There may be nothing wrong with any of them individually, but they just don't spark off each other very well.


Definitely. I've been in a game where there was a GM and two co-GMs, the GM left and the two co-GMs continued running the game, but it only worked because everyone was on the same page to start with, and stayed on the same page by communicating their ideas at every opportunity.