So for a couple of years, I've been slowly putting together an explanation of how I run tabletop roleplaying campaigns, and I finally got a good intro and summary that tie everything together and give me a foundation for organizing the details of what I do.
The Living World Sandbox
A Living World Sandbox extends the Sandbox Campaign by bringing the setting to life. The goal is to let the players feel as though they have stepped through a wardrobe into a living, breathing world while pursuing the adventures that interest them.
A Living World Sandbox is not a game system. It is a way to organize and run a campaign. The referee presents a setting whose inhabitants have their own motivations, resources, relationships, and plans. The players decide what their characters attempt, and the referee uses the rules and the setting's established circumstances to determine what happens next.
The referee does not prepare a predetermined story for the players to follow. Instead, the referee prepares the circumstances, places, and people that make up the setting. The campaign develops from the interaction between what the players attempt and how the setting's inhabitants respond.
Because of this, a Living World Sandbox can be run using many fantasy roleplaying systems, including the original 1974 rules, AD&D First Edition, GURPS, Fantasy Hero, Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, or others.
Some systems are easier to use than others. Generally, the more a system focuses on describing what characters can do rather than defining a story path or narrative structure, the easier it is to use for a Living World Sandbox. In my experience, most traditional roleplaying games lend themselves readily to this style of campaign.
How the Campaign Unfolds
The referee describes the characters' current circumstances. The players respond by describing or roleplaying what they attempt as their characters. The referee decides what happens, using the rules when the outcome is uncertain, and then describes how the setting's circumstances change or role-plays how its inhabitants react.
This process repeats throughout the session and throughout the campaign
After the session, the referee considers what the players changed, who knows about it, and what the affected characters (or creatures) will do next. Those consequences become part of the circumstances presented during the next session.
The result is a continuing cycle of choices, consequences, and new circumstances propelling the campaign forward.
Elements of the Campaign
A Living World Sandbox has four important elements:
- Locales where events and adventures can occur.
- Characters with whom the players can interact.
- Plans made by characters and factions.
- Natural or supernatural events that occur independently of those plans.
These elements do not need to be detailed in advance of play. The referee only needs enough material to begin the campaign and respond to the players' initial choices.
These elements do not need to be detailed in advance of play. The referee only needs enough material to begin the campaign and respond to the players' initial choices.
Locales
The iconic adventure locale is the dungeon, a maze of rooms that may be empty or contain monsters, deadly traps, strange features, or glittering treasure. Dungeon mazes can be stacked upon one another to form multiple levels, with the danger of the monsters and the value of the treasure increasing as the characters venture deeper.
In the world outside of the dungeon, locales are just as varied. There are natural locales like creature lairs and hazardous terrain (deserts, icefields, and jungles). Some locales are built, like villages and towns, camps and castles. Some locales are old and no longer used, creating ruins that may be inhabited by monsters and their treasure.
At the beginning of a campaign, create or detail about half a dozen locales. These may be original creations or places taken from an existing setting.
About half should be places where the characters can seek adventure, such as dungeons, monster-haunted forests, abandoned mines, or ruined monasteries. The remainder should be inhabited locales that the party can use as bases or visit for aid and information. Examples include a large village, a castle belonging to a local lord, a roadside inn, a market town, or a druid circle hidden deep within the forest.
These locales establish the immediate geography of the campaign. They give the players places to explore, people to meet, and resources to use.
Characters
The characters encountered during the campaign are the key element that allows the players to make their mark upon the setting. Some may become allies. Others will remain neutral unless circumstances change. A few will oppose the player characters from the beginning.
Prepare about a dozen notable characters. As a starting point, three might be potential allies, six might be neutral, and three might be potential enemies. These are only the characters' initial attitudes. Do not be surprised when the players, through good or poor decisions and roleplaying, completely rearrange the list.
Examples include:
- A village reeve.
- A castle lord.
- A master druid.
- The chief of an Orc tribe.
- A merchant who controls the local smuggling ring.
- A priest of an evil god who commands a band of outlaws.
- A disgruntled old farmer who knows everybody within a day's travel.
- An ambitious yeoman seeking adventure.
- A retired Magic-User who sells potions from a cottage at the end of the lane.
Create a few relationships among these characters, but keep their number low at first. The old farmer and the castle lord may have been rivals for the love of the same woman when they were young and remained enemies ever since. The young yeoman may yearn for adventure so he can gain the fighting skill needed to avenge his family against the Orc chief.
Just as the passages and chambers of a dungeon provide natural avenues of exploration, the relationships among the characters provide social paths for the players to follow. At the end of these paths may be allies, enemies, information, resources, and complications that lead to further adventures.
Plans
The inhabitants of the setting have lives of their own. They possess hopes, fears, ambitions, and plans for the future.
The players decide the plans of their own characters. The referee decides the plans of the non-player characters and factions. Together, these plans become forces that shape the campaign.
Detailing the plans of three to five important characters or factions adds enough complexity to fuel numerous adventures.
For example, an evil priest has taken up residence in the forest. His god has commanded him to exact vengeance upon the region. Two generations ago, followers of the goddess of justice purged the dark god's worshippers and drove them from the area. The priest has now attracted a collection of outlaws and desperate peasants and organized them into a gang of bandits.
Most of the wealth and supplies stolen by the bandits are given to the priest. He uses these resources to search the forest for the lost axe of Chernak, a legendary Orc chief who led his tribe into the forest long ago. The priest hopes to use the axe to gain the allegiance of the present-day Orcs. Together, the priest, the axe, and the Orcs will become his god's instrument of vengeance against the followers of the goddess of justice.
Some plans are modest. A farmer may want to purchase another field. A merchant may want to eliminate a rival. A young knight may want to earn enough renown to receive a fief.
Other plans may threaten an entire region.
Regardless of their scope, these plans represent what could happen, not what will happen. They are not plots that must be completed. The actions of the players may advance a plan, delay it, change it, or make it impossible.
When that happens, the referee considers the character's motivations, knowledge, resources, and current circumstances and decides what they will attempt next.
Events
Events are natural or supernatural occurrences that happen for reasons largely independent of the choices made by the setting's characters (PC or NPCs). Some events may be anticipated or prevented through timely action, but a character's plan does not normally cause them.
Natural events can include droughts, floods, fires, disease, severe storms, harsh winters, or earthquakes that devastate the countryside.
Supernatural events might include the opening of a passage into the realm of Faerie, a surge in the local flow of magic that makes spells dangerously effective, the awakening of a slumbering taigh, or a conjunction that allows the dead to walk abroad.
Events should occur because they follow from the setting's conditions, not simply because the referee wants to create excitement. Their number should be sufficient to make the campaign feel like a living world, but not so great that the players constantly feel beleaguered.
Too many natural disasters will cause the campaign to become focused on people struggling against nature. Too many supernatural disruptions will make extraordinary events feel ordinary.
Use events sparingly enough that they remain significant.
Running the Living World Sandbox
Once the groundwork has been laid, it is time to begin the campaign.
Three primary techniques help create the feeling that the players have stepped into the setting as their characters:
- The Initial Context establishes where the characters are and what they know at the beginning of the campaign.
- World in Motion manages how the setting changes as the campaign progresses.
- The Bag of Stuff provides material when the players do something unexpected, and the referee has no time for detailed preparation.
The Initial Context
The players' choices as their characters propel the Living World Sandbox forward. To make meaningful choices, however, the players must understand their circumstances and their characters' place within them. Otherwise, their choices are little better than random dice rolls.
This is particularly important at the beginning of a campaign, when there are no previous sessions or events for the players to use as reference points.
The Initial Context establishes the characters' circumstances at the beginning of the campaign and provides players with enough information to make informed choices from the outset.
The Initial Context does not have to be elaborate. It only has to be sufficient.
What is sufficient varies from player to player. I have had players create detailed histories and backgrounds. Others found a single sentence sufficient.
"Max likes to hang out at bars in Eastgate and gets involved in trouble."
That player decided to create a Human Thug for a campaign set in the City-State of Eastgate.
Most players find a paragraph or two of personal background sufficient, along with a handout describing the region, town, or city where the campaign begins.
When the players are uncertain about the available options, prepare three to five rumors, pieces of lore, problems, or contacts for them to investigate. Anything their characters would certainly know should be included in a short handout or explained by the referee.
Keep the handout as brief as possible while still covering what the players need to know.
Ideally, the Initial Context should answer the following questions:
- Where is the character starting?
- Who does the character know?
- What are the character's immediate goals?
- What social complications exist for the character at the beginning?
The answers do not have to point toward a specific adventure. Their purpose is to give the player enough context to begin making decisions as the character.
The Pre-game
The basic idea of the pre-game is to sit down one-on-one with each player before the first session and flesh out the character's background. This usually consists of discussion mixed with a little light roleplaying.
The referee might ask how the character knows a local merchant, why the character left home, what obligation they owe to a temple, or why a local lord considers them troublesome.
This technique reduces the amount of written material needed for handouts. Discussion and roleplaying often work better and are more enjoyable than reading a document, particularly for players or groups who want detailed backgrounds at the beginning of the campaign.
If this feels too formal, or if the time is not available, that is fine. The important point is that the Initial Context is sufficient for the group's time and interest.
Setting the World in Motion
After each session, review the plans of the important characters and factions affected by what occurred.
Begin with what the players did as their characters. Then consider:
- Who knows what happened?
- What do they believe happened?
- How does it affect their plans?
- What resources do they have available?
- What will they attempt next?
- What signs of their response will the players be able to observe?
The distinction between what happened and what the inhabitants believe happened is important. Characters act upon what they know, what they have been told, and what they can reasonably discover. They do not automatically possess the referee's knowledge of events.
You do not have to manage the entire world at once, or even an entire region.
The players' choices usually affect their immediate social circle first. This includes the characters with whom they directly interacted, followed by those connected to them. Beyond that, your notes only need to be updated when you have the time or when events make those distant characters relevant.
For most purposes, characters more than two degrees removed from the player characters are beyond the campaign's social event horizon for a session or two.
As the player characters gain experience, wealth, allies, and authority, their actions will begin to affect a wider area. A fight in a tavern may concern only the owner, the local watch, and the participants. Killing a baron, destroying a temple, or founding a mercenary company may concern an entire realm.
After each session, review the relevant plans in light of what the players did or failed to do. Sometimes an NPC's existing plan will become impossible. When that happens, consider the character's personality and motivations and determine what they now want from the future.
This process helps the referee avoid forcing the players along a predetermined path. The non-player characters may pursue their own goals, but they need to respond to changing circumstances just as the player characters do.
When you suspect that your preferences are influencing the outcome too strongly, use a good set of random tables you like. Random results can help you create unexpected reactions, complications, decisions, or new plans that you would not have considered.
Balance random results with judgment.
Overreliance on judgment may cause the campaign to reflect the referee's biases. Too much reliance on random tables can make events feel disconnected from the personalities, motives, and circumstances already established.
The purpose of the random result is to address uncertainty, not to replace the setting's logic.
The Bag of Stuff
When acting as their characters, players do the unexpected all the time.
They may decide to visit a shrine you noted but did not detail. They may abandon the dungeon you prepared and explore the forest instead. They may take an interest in a nameless guard, travel down a road you never expected them to use, or attempt to speak with a monster you assumed they would fight.
When this happens, the referee must improvise.
The Bag of Stuff is a collection of locales, characters, plans, situations, and other material that can be pulled out and used to run part of the campaign without preparation.
The material does not need to be elaborate. It only needs to give you enough information to adapt the material, begin describing the situation, and roleplay with the players.
Once something from the Bag of Stuff enters play, take notes. It is now part of the setting. If the players return to it, you can develop it further between sessions.
Locales
Prepare or gather six to twelve generic locations that commonly appear in the campaign.
Examples include:
- A shop.
- A crossroads.
- A forest clearing.
- A section of swamp.
- A peasant's hut.
- A roadside shrine.
- A ruined tower.
- A small cave.
- A merchant camp.
- A manor house.
These locations do not need extensive descriptions. A sketch map, a short list of features, and a note about who may be present are usually sufficient.
When you use one, alter a few details to make it fit the circumstances. A generic forest clearing may contain an abandoned cart in one session and a weathered stone idol in another.
Take notes during play if the locale is likely to be revisited. Later, when you have time, develop it into something more distinctive.
Characters
A major section of these rules describes common non-player character types in the same general format used for monsters. These entries are useful when preparing an adventure or locale, and when you need to draw something from your Bag of Stuff.
When the players unexpectedly interact with someone, choose an appropriate NPC entry and change a few details.
Give the character a name, a mannerism, an immediate concern, and a reason for being present. That is usually enough to begin roleplaying the encounter.
If the character becomes important, make a note of what happened and develop them further after the session.
Plans
Prepare a short list of personality types, immediate concerns, and broad goals. Add to the list whenever you have a useful idea.
Examples include:
- Wants recognition from a superior.
- Needs money to pay a debt.
- Is concealing a past crime.
- Wants revenge against a rival.
- Is afraid of losing social standing.
- Wants to protect a family member.
- Is searching for forbidden knowledge.
- Wants to leave but lacks the courage.
- Is loyal to an institution but distrusts its leader.
These ideas provide a starting point for players interacting with someone you did not expect to become important.
As with locales and characters, use only enough detail to serve as a memory aid. The character's fuller personality and plans can develop through play.
Afterword on the Living World Sandbox
What started me on the path of running campaigns as Living World Sandboxes was a willingness to let the players trash my setting.
In the early 1980s, I gained a reputation as the referee who allowed the players to kill the king, build wizard towers, and become magnates controlling the underworld of a city-state. The referee who let his players trash his setting.
Much of this came from my background in early wargaming. My friends and I would set up scenarios and battle them out to see what happened. When I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons, that same fascination carried over into my campaigns.
I built the world, detailed the characters, let the players decide where to begin, and then ran the campaign to see what happened. I had no particular destination or conclusion in mind.
My creativity was engaged not by writing stories, but by considering what could happen and then accepting the constraints of roleplaying the non-player characters under the same circumstances and rules as the players.
The results were often unexpected, surprising, and memorable for the entire group.
Across the decade, that remained the heart of the Living World Sandbox. The referee creates the setting and brings its inhabitants to life. The players step into the setting as their characters and decide what interests them and what adventures to pursue.
And they will trash your setting as a result.
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