Prepping for a (WoD1) sandbox.

[Evlyn]

Hello, I am prepping for a old World of Darkness play by forum. I want to play the game in a sandbox. I have re-read the "sandbox adventures" thread and I wonder if how I am planing to prep will help or hinder my game.

I will be playing on a french forum dedicated to play by forums games. The community feature so far ongoings games of Call of Cthulhu, Trinity, Midnight, Vampire Dark Age, Star Wars and will soon open a forum to play the various titles of the old World of Darkness.

The choice of games titles is limited since the community build a dedicated forum for each titles, where the games are played and where players and game referees can read each other games and exchange about those game. I decided to host a game on one of those forum to profit from the community pool of players and social environment. (Since I already interact and exchange with some members of that community).

I don't know who will be my players. I have to post on the main forum to announce my game, and if I have 3 players (or maybe more) a subforum will be opened for me on the WoD forum where I will be able to run my game. So I am conscious, that I will need to clearly state my creative agenda to attract players who want to share it.

I want to run a sandbox game featuring the Ananasi: the werespiders. I will be using the WoD1 rules, but I am not attached to them.

What I have prep so far: All the players will be part of a family of werespiders. This family reside in a rural setting, but decided or are forced to move into a big city. Moving into the big city is a big change for the whole family. Players characters can be siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, parents, etc. The only family role they can't take is the role of the family matriarch.

I ask myself, should I create a detailed family and ask them to insert their character in the family? Or should I let them build the family together as they are creating their characters?

Should I prep all the setting alone, or should I build it all with the players? ( I assume it will be a mix of the two)

Should I keep for myself the motivations of the npc and some "secrets" or should I present everything to the pc?  I have a feeling that I should present them all the elements of the setting from the start, even the opposition (stuff their characters don't know) to help the players build their drive.

Should I ask for characters goals or "bangs"? What should/can I prep to hyper charge the setting without being GM-centric?

Will the WoD build-in setting and game system hinder me too much to run a sandbox game? Will I be lacking too much useful game system tools? (This is maybe off-thread)

I want to run this game because: the PbF community can provide me PbF players, I want to be part of that french PbF community since I have a good time exchanging with them, I love werespiders, I want to play with a sandbox setting.

[Frank Tarcikowski]

Hi there,

I've run my share of play-by-forum games and in my experience the medium is just too slow for discussing every bit back and forth. Rather, the participants' judgement must be trusted to keep up the mutual spirit of the game while just going ahead and inventing stuff on the fly.

It's okay (and useful) to define some elements of the game world (certain key NPCs or groups of NPCs, certain locations, certain bits of information) that are restricted to the GM. But everything else should be out for grabs so the players can use it and add to it when they write their posts.

I would rather advise not to try and figure out everything in great detail before play even starts. It just takes too much time if you have to wait for everyone's input on the forum. And you don't really need to. The good thing about a forum RPG is that you don't have to make quick decisions and rulings like you have to when playing face to face. Rather, you can think about every plot twist, every new situation for a couple of minutes or longer before you make your post. That's why I think you don't have to do that much prep, you can start with only a pretty general idea of what's in the sandbox and figure out the details while you are already playing.

If I were you, I would write an introduction, including some in-game text, that sets the mood for the game and shows the players what kind of style is expected. I would introduce the family matriarch and maybe some other important NPC family members that you already have in mind. Then I would let the players make characters and figure out their relationships. Let them post their characters, including stats. By figuring out their backgrounds, they will naturally add NPCs to the family. I would suggest posting stats for NPC family members, too, but that's a question of taste.

As for the big city, if the players have any backgrounds that tie in there, then let them define those, but otherwise I would not involve them in setting up the sandbox. The players will surely be invited to make up details on the fly once they start exploring the big city, like this Chinese restaurant on the corner, the punk neighbours who play their music late at night, or simply the cab that picks them up. But the major antagonists and important supernatural creatures I would keep to myself as GM to reveal only through play.

I think this kind of exploration (in the original sense of the word) is an important part of playing in the World of Darkness and you won't serve your players well by asking them to, e.g., make up the Vampire prince of the city. That's your job as GM.

However, GM secrets are useless if the players never find out. Here's a catchy phrase from Dogs in the Vineyard: Actively reveal the town (or city, in your case) through play. If the players don't come looking for it, it will come looking for the characters. NPCs will seek out the characters, and they will want the characters to do something. Or they will do something the players can't ignore (a "bang"). Then you see how your players handle it. But don't chase them too hard, if they do venture on their own, use your sandbox of ideas and play along. Build on their actions rather than instroducing something that's totally unrelated. That should be much easier in the context of a forum game than face to face, because you've got more time to think. Also, you can customize your sandbox to specifically address the themes of the player characters.

Hope that helps.

- Frank

[Evlyn]

Thanks Frank, you confirm in general what I had in mind.
I will prep the family and the city. And adjust stuff to connect it with the characters.
I think that I will expose some npc motivation and some city elements before character creation. But I will keep some stuff for myself. 

I don't feel like prepping a lot of stats, I will just prep the essential to define the npc in general, and add some detail when needed during gameplay. I agree that PbF is more easy on preparation, but you have to consider the limit of it slow pacing rhythm.


Here, I have some question about the sandbox technique in general.

Do defining clear player character goals during character creation is essential? Is it in fact the essential part of prepping a sandbox? Or do build-in character conflicts will suffice?

Is it possible to prep a sandbox to be a short or long term experience? Do sandbox need by definition to be a long term experience (since player need time to explore the sandbox)? Considering the slow pace of PbF, maybe I should try to prep a sandbox where the setting is really hyper charged, so that exploration will quickly activate character screwdown? Hum, maybe the family theme is not best suited for a (relative) short term sandbox experience. I need to think about it.

Maybe I could do episodes? The sandbox technique is compatible with a episodic structure? Prime time adventure rely a lot on the sandbox technique?

[Frank Tarcikowski]

Hi Evlyn,

Yes, I did get the impression that you are already on track about the basics of play-by-forum RPGs, so I did not get into that. As for your specific question about sandboxing, I am quite reluctant to get into a GNS discussion but the other thread has a strong GNS context in that it's assuming a Narrativist Creative Agenda. Let me see what I can contribute without going into that too much.

Do defining clear player character goals during character creation is essential? Is it in fact the essential part of prepping a sandbox? Or do build-in character conflicts will suffice?

Depending on where you want to go with the game, a certain mindfulness to, let's say, story potential might be required. Strong goals can be helpful if you are looking for a player-driven game, but I would not say it is essential to define them during character creation. If you have interesting characters with powerful personalities, and players who play these characters pro-avctively, you will see goals emerge in play anyway. I do recommend maintaining a dialogue with the players – e.g. in the OT thread – on where they would like to go with their characters.

Is it possible to prep a sandbox to be a short or long term experience? Do sandbox need by definition to be a long term experience (since player need time to explore the sandbox)? Considering the slow pace of PbF, maybe I should try to prep a sandbox where the setting is really hyper charged, so that exploration will quickly activate character screwdown? Hum, maybe the family theme is not best suited for a (relative) short term sandbox experience. I need to think about it.

Maybe I could do episodes? The sandbox technique is compatible with a episodic structure? Prime time adventure rely a lot on the sandbox technique?

Hyper-charged sounds good to me. I don't see anything wrong with the family theme. You can hyper-charge the family with conflicts as well, it doesn't have to be a safe haven.

To my understanding, Primetime Adventures is the opposite of sandboxing. It is highly focussed and structured around story arc and protagonist issues. It doesn't have the kind of emergent screwdown Ron is talking about in the other thread, the timing and dramaturgy are more predictable (or reliable, if you like).

There might be sort of an emergent episodic structure in a sandbox game and as a GM you can try to facilitate that, but you can never arrange for it in advance.

It's true that a sandbox takes more time to explore and reveal through play. If you take a story arc and issues like PtA does, you will get more story done in the same time, but play itself will feel rather different. I guess you simply need to decide what you want to do. Personally, I think that the World of Darkness is more suited to sandboxing than to episodic play with a strong story structure.

- Frank

[Evlyn]

Thanks again for the reply Frank. (Yesterday, I have read your old thread [Vampire 2E Sabbat] Of Evil and of Simulationism.)

But I don't know anymore if I want to run my game.
Last night, I tried to prep my setting and my NPC, so I found myself re-reading the ananasi sourcebook and other werewolf related sourcebooks. In the end I was really confused about the setting, about factions motivation and goals, about how npc fit in the game world, etc, etc, etc... I won't go into the details, but I had a big headache. I also felt that If I want players who are new to the World of Darkness, they need to assimilate nearly a entire culture to play their characters and to interact with their character society. I felt like there was too much noise within the game setting and the game mechanic.

I kind of knew that from the start. But I though that it would be easier to use the game setting material. I don't know, I though that rich game material equal a lot of interesting material to place in a sandbox. I think I will sleep on this. But I don't feel anymore like running this game. And I need to clear my head. But, hey sandboxing is still really interesting. 

 

[Frank Tarcikowski]

Hey, no problem. Picture me with a raised eyebrow when I read about werespiders. I figured you were playing with a bunch of total WoD nerds. If these people are beginners, why not just play a straight game of Vampire or Werewolf without any crossovers? They're not really intended, nor well suited, for crossovers.

- Frank

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

There's another possibility: take anything you like about the were-spiders in the sourcebooks and isolate them, with no other supernatural stuff involved at all. Forget everything about the factions and other types of were-whatevers, in fact, the entire history in the setting. It's a new setting with no extra special stuff: just you and the were-spiders and normal people.

It will still require some preparation time, for sure. You might have to extract and partially write your own little "our game" book to use as a shared reference. Still, you can be sure that anything you and the group will use is what you (and with any luck they too) find genuinely interesting.

What do you think of that option?

Best, Ron

[Evlyn]

Frank, you are right about werespiders. They are maybe too WoD nerdy :p
When I looked at their book, I first though about the section female story in Sex and Sorcery. I wanted to do something about pregnancy, family ties, eggs, birth control, spider reproduction. Hum. Well also in general I like insects and spiders so I though, ok it could be fun to do something with werespiders, the weavers, spiders spirits, etc... and move away from the garou.
But I was maybe thinking too much about myself without considering my potential players (they could be a mix of WoD nerds and non-WoD gamers).

Ron, I could do that, I have nothing again the idea. But maybe I need to revise my goals.
Hum, I think I want: 1) to play on the community forum, 2) experiment with the sandbox technique.
After reflexion I think that those two points are more important than using the werespiders or exploring female stories themes.
The werespiders are maybe just interference to my 2 main goals.

I think I will ask the players to play normal humans.

So back to the sandbox, I think I need to focus more on a location than on a specie of creatures. I could run a game about a hospital, where all the players are part of the staff. So the hospital would be my sandbox. I know that sandbox are not defined by physical location, but I think it would help me to try the technique on a small location. I am also tempted by the idea of running a game about a shopping mall. There was something in one of the sourcebook about a shopping mall line where the malls are so identical that sometime reality confound them and some weird correspondence phenomenon happen. But this is more delicate to use than the hospital setting.   

Anyway, I need to think more about this. 

[Frank Tarcikowski]

Family and mating is also pretty big in Werewolf, but I understand the fascination of... bugs. Now that you mention Sex & Sorcery, did you read the Azk'Arn setting? It's pretty much exactly what you're talking about. When I read it, my first thought was, man, this is advanced role-playing. It really is! All the symbolism going on and all the alien stuff you need to get a grasp on.

(Well, truth to be told, my first thought was, man, you're really a biology professor, aren't you? But my second thought was what I wrote above.)

- Frank

[Evlyn]

I wish I was a biology professor! :-p
Insects are so fascinating at so many level. I really enjoy drawing them.
Yup, I will ask again my friend for the book and I will re-read the chapter on Azk'Arn, but I wont adventure that far with my game.
Just after posting about the hospital idea, I flashed that pregnancy/birth control and hospitals are related themes. I think I will still use the Ananasi, but as non players characters.