I'll admit that my hobby time over the last few months has become pretty much swallowed up in the fun I have been having with 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, both in terms of the few actual playing sessions we have had to date, but also in the world creation process (the tip of the iceberg of which has appeared here).
This excitement has led me (inevitably I suppose) to the multitude of stuff on YouTube of people playing D&D (from recorded online streaming sessions) as well as experienced people discussing how to create a world, how to run a game, how to prepare for a session, etc. [Yes, time down a rathole, as with all of YouTube....] A lot of this is pretty good, and a lot of the streamed online games (even the popular ones...yes, RollPlay Solum, I'm looking at you) are run by over-matched DM's doing games for uninspired players. Both can be somewhat useful: I like this and should try to remember to do this, and I despise that and don't want to do that.
Which reminds me. Note to self: If I ever find myself going into each game session with my sole goal being to have every single thing the players run into try to kill them, and if I act openly disappointed every time I fail to kill them...stop playing!! And know the rules (at least passably well).
But I digress.
It has been encouraging to me that many of the things that I have seen represented as being really important to creating a good gaming experience for the players are things that have been obvious and fundamental to me. And I only mention this because ultimately that is what I am seeking to do: create a good gaming experience for myself and the players (and enjoy the creative process that goes along with it).
To that end, I recently saw something on a very good if somewhat meandering series called Being Everything Else (Steven Lumpkin and Adam Koebel) that really caused me to stop and re-consider what I have been doing. It was a discussion of role playing game (RPG) gaming styles, and what the implications of them were. The two opposing styles discussed were The Railroad and The Sandbox.
Before touching on each of those, I need to recognize the idea of "player agency". Player agency basically means that the choices that the players make in the game matter, and that different choices will result in different outcomes; that they are (at least somewhat) in control of their own destinies and have an impact on the world around them. The Railroad and the Sandbox are, in theory, diametrically opposed in terms of player agency (whether it seems like it or not). [predictable spoiler - these guys don't like the Railroad much at all]
The Railroad - A Railroad game is basically one in which the DM has created a story line, and the players are going to end up playing through that story line regardless of the choices they make along the way (no player agency). It may seem like the players are making choices, but they really aren't, because no matter what choices they seem to make along the way, they are still ultimately going to get railroaded to the same place. Choose from A or B, but both A and B lead to C. After C, choose D or E, but both D and E lead to F. And so on.
The Sandbox - A Sandbox can be thought of as more of a cooperative effort where a basic structure (world) exists with things in it, and the players determine what they are going to do. This can be a very different type of game, which requires a lot of player input to help create the story arc, and requires a DM who is very good at improvising things within a known framework. Which isn't to say that a Sandbox doesn't have a lot of background material and prep work behind it, but more that the DM remains open to letting the players help guide the campaign.
The Roller Coaster (a sub-category...) - Some railroads can be done so well that the ride is worth it even if you know you are going to start at A and end at Z.
The Railroad tends to be universally scoffed at now as "old school", and is characterized as the way people used to do things before future generations of gamers became more enlightened. The entire golden age of Gygax/TSR D&D was a railroad, by the way... [For that matter, pretty much any published adventure module is going to be a railroad - an adventure hook leading to a Boss Battle with a bunch of scenes in between].
All of this made me give some thought to how this relates to our campaign, and where we are on this Railroad-to-Sandbox continuum.
Honestly, the first few sessions were a railroad. I think they needed to be. To get us going, I created a first adventure/story line, and the players seemed to expect to be pointed somewhere. Which I did. It's what I had prepared. I hadn't run a D&D session in over 20 years, and wanted to at least get us going with something that I had planned out ahead of time. There is safety (and comfort) in the pre-built. I am old school after all.
In the more recent sessions, without having seen this theory stuff on YouTube yet, I have been consciously trying to move away from what would be termed the railroad and into a more open-ended campaign. Being able to do this requires a good understanding of the background of my world, its history, and options that are open to the players. I have striven to create enough background (which I enjoy anyway) such that the players can choose from A or B or C in terms of what to do next, and those things really are different paths, not all leading to point D. I think I am far enough along in the world creation process that this is possible, and is more comfortable to do than it would have been earlier on.
I'm not sure what my players would say, but I think I am probably at the stage now where I am running a roller coaster that you can choose to send in direction A, B or C (and they don't all end at D). Going forward, I will certainly be paying more attention to continually asking the question "what do you wanna do next?", as opposed to the players waiting for an NPC to strongly hint "I think we should go to...".
In defense of my Roller Coaster world, there are forces at work and enough backstory such that the players, whether they realize it or not yet, do (now) have player agency. They are on a path that provides choices for them, and those choices will have impacts on the world and the future of the campaign. How I am trying to accomplish this is to drop enough plot hooks into the sessions such that they accumulate a list of things that they could choose to investigate next, and that those things truly do lead in different directions, and are not necessarily related to each other. Hopefully, where these different plot hooks lead will develop organically, with input from all. I have begun providing a "What You Know" list for the players as part of the ongoing documentation of the campaign. I hope to get to the point soon where that list will be long enough such that the players have a lot of options to look at and decide "we should dig into this one next."
As of now, the "What You Know" list includes plot hooks on a goblinoid threat to the Shearingvale, ogre activity in the Silver Hills, old abandoned ruins of Onoria scattered throughout the area, the legend of Castle Langborne, potential political/power struggle issues in the Shearingvale, and some other "legend" bits of information that I honestly have no idea where they would lead. Those story lines will play out, with or without the characters' direct involvement. It is a wide world after all.
We may never get to a true sandbox, but at the least I hope they enjoy the roller coaster ride.
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