Role-Playing Game Sandboxes Can have Different Textures

I've started this article about sandbox gaming a number of times and every time I have erased what I had written because I couldn't come up with a clear introduction. This time, instead of giving a lead in on how I came about to writing an article about sandboxing a role-playing game (RPG) I am going to tell you straight up that this is about sandboxing.

Part of the problem was coming up with a context of what sandbox gaming is. There are different ways of defining a sandbox game. I am sure there are other ways of looking at this concept besides what I am presenting, and I good with hearing your thoughts on the subject.

One definition of sandbox gaming is when there is no set structure to the adventures. A game master (GM) takes a game world, which can be of their own creation or of someone else's, and starts dropping in adventures. The adventures don't have to link to each other, other than they are located in the same world. Many times this is what happens when a GM buys a book defining a game world and adventure modules. Modules may come in a series thus creating a campaign, but there are also adventures that can be put into the world that are designed to stand on their own.

Standalone adventures are becoming less frequent as the adventures coming out are entire story arcs taking characters through a series of adventures to accomplish a grand quest—a campaign. These are wonderful adventures and I know many people who have played these adventures on one side of the screen or the other and enjoyed them. I am one.

Another type of sandbox play is where players can have their character join for a particular adventure, but maybe not another. I think of these as the larger gaming groups usually working in coordination with the gaming company supporting the system. These groups are great for people who have limited access to other gamers, or times when they can game. You see these groups at the conventions and local meet-ups. They will help you create a character and give you a place where that character is always welcomed to play.

These groups provide a level of social interaction a number of people wouldn't normally have access to. I have a friend who used to have to travel a lot with his job. He wasn't the type of person who wanted to spend his evenings in his room or just sitting in the hotel bar. He would go sightseeing and check out new places, but he also carried his characters in his briefcase. He's told me about games he had around the world because he would find out where the local chapter was meeting and he would show up to play. He was always welcomed and he even created some long-term friendships.

There is also a form of sandboxing that can work well for a smaller, regular meeting groups. A shared campaign world where you have some basic commonalities for how characters are created and the handling of house rules. This format in many ways combines the previous two, with some exceptions.

Everyone has the opportunity to play in the same game world. You can GM an adventure and then the next time around you are playing a character with someone else being the GM. In our group's past experience this has had some drawbacks, but they can be overcome. A GM has the ability to drop in an item that is really useful for one of their own characters. I have seen this happen, and when the person kept doing it in an attempt to make their character more powerful other players started selling off the items to take them out of play. Instead of strengthening their character they started making everyone else richer.

GMing becomes less stressful. From my experience most gaming groups have between four to eight players. Not everyone is going to want to GM, and, not everyone should (that's a different topic). There are usually at least two people in a group who can and like to GM. The more people who want to GM makes this format even better. While one person is running a game, better if it goes over several sessions, others have more time to prepare their adventure. One reason I have seen that some people never take up the mantel of GM is because they don't want to feel pressured in having to develop the next adventure in the campaign. This can even be reading the next adventure.

Creating the next adventure is more open. When you are creating adventures for a specific campaign there is the advantage and disadvantage of knowing who the characters are going to be. Campaigns are a great system for developing plot lines for specific characters, building on previous situations, and having players delve deeper into the psychosis of their characters. But, many writers have quirky little ideas they'd like to do. An open sandbox allows a place for those ideas. These adventures may go on a tangent within the game world using different levels of characters, different classes, different settings, etc.

Player characters have the ability of sticking around after the campaign ends. Players build characters they want to play. They may have been built for a specified set of adventures, but when we create characters we are putting a part of ourselves in them. Then as they grow, they take the part we gave them and become truly unique creatures of our imagination. Player's want to keep their characters going—I haven't heard a player ever complain that their character lived.

I am biased to having a sandbox world available for the gaming group. I don't think that all of the adventures should be ran in the sandbox. Along with the sandbox world our group uses, I run a standalone campaign and so does another person. I have also ran a campaign for a specific set of characters within the sandbox world, where at the end they were released to join back into the adventures of the broader community of adventurers.

I am not saying you have to create a sandbox for your gaming group. I met one person who GMs for his group and they don't want to play a character. It works for them, and that may work for you. More often-than-not I think GMs also like to sit on the other side of the screen, at least once in a while. You may also not have the resources in your area to do this.

I have been lucky in being involved with a group who has maintained a sandbox. It has allowed a place for players to try GMing and GMs a place to try out something new. Our sandbox play has created great character friendships and adversaries.

Many of our best stories of reminiscing when comes from the games played in the sandbox.

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