Help with making a Sandbox

[bestialwarlust]

So I saw this discussion on another board and I thought it might be a good thread to have here. Maybe if we get enough interest it could be a sticky for new ref's. 

Let's treat this as if I'm a new GM and I just discovered OD&D and I love how open ended it is. But I want to create a sandbox so I need help. What advice can you give me.

How do I set it up so that players aren't overwhelmed with choices? 

I don't want to just have a town and dungeon nearby I want my players to have plenty to choose from how do I do that?

How much should I start out with?

Above all I just want to make it fun and help keep the group engaged in the setting. I'll be running it for different groups of people what advice do you have?

[tetramorph]

bestialwarlust , I would just say:

Get the OS board ready and prepare in advance most of the castles and villages near to the start village of the characters.

Place your favorite dungeon modules in appropriate locations.

You could start in the central village and make that the Keep on the Borderlands (B2).

You could make the Cave in the Map the Caves of the Unknown (B1).

Start your characters at the Verb-ing Noun Tavern and give them three choices that are equally full of treasure and adventure and that you would have equal fun running and that you feel equally prepared for.

Three choices is enough to maintain the illusion of full volition.

That's all I got for now.

Nice discussion starter.

Note for Admin Pete : seems like this thread belongs down in Refereeing a Campaign.

[Admin Pete]

I will let this ride hear for a while and I will likely do a forum cleanup eventually but not in the immediate future. Our (my wife and I) 20th anniversary trip is coming up fast.

[Necromancer]

Great topic for a thread, bestialwarlust! I guess there are many ways to tackle this. On top of my head, I'd say I'd decide for a theme of the relevant part of the setting - pseudo-medieval fantasy-Europe, iron-age misty north, sun-scorched Arabesque desert, gonzo slime jungle or whatever - and then place a village or town that the characters might use as a base. Then I'd prepare a few places of interest (dungeons, ruins etc), create a few recurring NPC's the PC's might come to deal with (local inn-keeper, a rich but shady merchant, a mystic in constant need of arcane knowledge/objects, the captain of the city guard, a prominent member of the Thieve's Guild etc), and maybe a table of random rumours about the surrounding area and its history. Then I'd say you're pretty good to go.

Oh, and by the way - tetramorph: somehow, somewhere, sometime I simply have to throw in an inn that is actually called "The Verb-ing Noun Tavern"!

[Admin Pete]

This thread has kind of languished, but I think it deserves another look, so I am bumping it back up to the top.

[scottanderson]

I've done, and continue to do, a ton of research into how to run the best hex crawls. There are probably about 20 tutorials online of various value. But the one that helped me the most is the one that made things the simplest. Solipistic Hexes by Brendan S.

A much more complicated but more thorough procedural document comes from The Alexandrian.  It starts here and continues on for a dozen or so posts.

Rob Conley is currently reprinting his series on building a hex-crawlable world of great granularity and detail.  To be honest, I haven't even begun to digest what he's written.  I would dearly love to test the limits of that granularity though.

Finally, Erin Smale started his series of posts on hex crawling here.  He also has numerous resources for your hex crawling needs.

Of these, it's the first one that's given me the most luck and inspiration because it's simple and my brain is simple.  Maybe the other ones will help you more.

[robertsconley]

I will start off with my basic piece of advice from Blackmarsh.
RPGNow Link
Direct Download Link

To get the maximum use of of a setting for a sandbox campaign, the referee looks over the locales, then chose the ones that best inspires him. Note the NPCs and their circumstances. Develop a timeline of events if the characters are not involved. Detail important locales and add new ones of your own design. Do the same for the NPCs, and make notes on their motivations and personalities.

After each session of the campaign, review what the players did. Look at your original timeline of events, see what impact their actions had, and make the needed changes. Sometimes the players’ actions will lead to a new and unexpected chain of events.

The creativity of the referee comes by not forcing his players to follow a predetermined story, but to develop new and interesting consequences based on the players’ actions. Use the NPC’s motivations and personalities to decide which consequences are the most likely and pick the most interesting.

The result is a campaign where the players feel they are forging their character’s destiny within a living, breathing world. It will not only be fun and adventurous, but also filled with surprises. Consequences will accumulate and spin the campaign into unexpected directions.

Of course is above is terse to fit into a small setting product.

I created Blackmarsh and so that people have a easy to digest version of a hexcrawl formatted setting along with some advice to go along with. It is however terse and thus a novice would benefit from some more details.

I am not particularly into jargon but I talked about this stuff enough that the answers fall into the same categories again and again.

Briefly they are

Bag of Stuff
World in Motion
Initial Context
The Hexcrawl Setting

Bag of Stuff
This is the primary focus of my How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox series. A series of steps that helps you create a setting and develop the "stuff" you need to run a sandbox campaign. Hence the Bag of Stuff.

The stuff includes, NPCs (and their motivations and goals), items (equipment, magic items, herbs, etc), and locales (generic and specific). For me having a roster of NPCs with their motivations and goal is key. Generally what I do is try come up with at least nine named NPCs or groups of NPCs. Three each for the following, continental (think the Catholic Church of our Middle Age, or the King), regional (the local Duke or Baron, the Border Guard), local (the mayor, the captain of the city watch, the guildmaster of the thieves guild, Lareth the Beautiful in the dungeon underneath the ruined Moathouse, etc). The plans and goals of these NPCs interacting with those of the PCs is what going to drive the sandbox campaign forward.

These NPCs are also serve as a type of reward if the PC are able to build a connection with them. Either as a patron or a client of the PCs, friendly NPCs can help to achieve the player's goal for their character.

Items are stuff that PCs can directly interact with. For example Ars Magica the RPG has a lot of detail on various aspects of magical items and substances and ties them all together so PC can play around with magic and try to invent new things. Make sense when the focus is on roleplaying mages living in a society of their own interacting with a fantasy version of medieval Europe. This is true of many other types of campaign where the items provide something interesting to play with or as one type of reward.

Locale are often places to be explored, some players feel wonder travelling to places like the City State of the Invincible Overlord. Of course there is the dungeon, along with wildernesses areas, and above ground ruins.

The key is to note to overwhelm yourself in making all this. You will probably have anywhere between six to a dozen and a half good ideas for "stuff". I would try to double that by using random tables as a source of inspiration. Then stop there and add on as you get more ideas or as the campaign develops.

My recent articles in the How to Make Fantasy Sandbox is an example of this approach for fleshing out a town.

The final items in your Bag of Stuff are the generic stuff. For example build a picture of a peasant hut in your head. Now vary it so it still a peasant hut but different. I bet you can some up with at least two or three different types. Do this for other things that the PCs will deal with over and over again. For example town guards, come up with two or three stereotypes. The key is not to try to write all this down. But to just think about it a few time so that you know what your natural stereotypes are. Do this often enough and you will develop enough of an internal bag of stuff that you could create whole adventures out of the thin air. In practice what will happen in the campaign that it will be a mix of prepared content you wrote down and the internal stuff in your head.

This is also why referee who have seen and read a lot of books, movies, and plays have an advantage over those with more limited experiences. By broadening your knowledge of the genre by viewing entertainment you expand that internal bag of stuff you keep in your head. Again, I stress, idea is to use the first things that pop in your mind when you hear "peasant hut", "town guard", 'evil high priest", etc. Don't work if you thing your players seen those things as well. It is the combination of this and that will generally obscure things to the point they won't care.

b]World in Motion[/b]
For me, the setting I use has a life of it own that goes with or without the involvement of the PC. Sometimes this includes natural events that just happen (volcano, earthquake, meteor strike, etc), but most of it is brought to life by the goal and motivations of the NPCs. I do two things to make this happen.

First I make a timeline of all the NPCs and natural events as if the PCs did not exist. This is not a railroad to be traveled but a plan of battle to be altered in like what the PC do or not do. The list is to keep you focused on what comes next. We are not God, or CPUs, and we need tricks and aides to help us conjure up a living world for our player's imagination. The timeline is such an aide.

After each session, review what the players did (or not do), and alter your timeline accordingly in light that. This is also serve as a guide to what new stuff you need to prepare for the next session. As you gain experience you will find that you can predict the range of possibilities the PCs will do. This is because when the sandbox campaign gets a head of steam going, consequences pile on top of consequences as the PCs pursue their goal. This give the sandbox campaign a direction and makes preparation easier for you.

Next you need to use a good set of random tables. Good in this case means that the tables work with the way YOU think, and the style of campaign you run. The reason for this is that from the point of view of the individual, various daily events appear random. The random tables are tool to foster that illusion. Plus real life of course has well.... everything. We are not God and thus can only focus and a handful of things at a time. For everything else use a random table.

I recommend you pregenerate results for the different tables and use those during the session. When a roll is called for just use the top item on the list and cross it out. The next time use the second item and so on. This almost mandatory with very detailed random table like the excellent town encounter table from Midkemia Press' Cities.

I am still distilling more specific advice in this area but I do have one specific technique that seems to work quite will for towns.

I will put out a unkeyed map of the town on the table. When the players move about, I will call out the title of each business they pass. You see Morn's Bakery, The Drunken Pig Inn, a smithy, Lucilla's Laces, etc. I don't describe anything more than the title. While doing this I will roll for an encounter (per whatever rules you are using). If indicated then grab the next one off of the list I mentioned above and roleplay it.

Initial Context
So this is the area that got screwed up when myself and others who were promoting the Wilderands of High Fantasy boxed set and sandbox campaigns. After a few month promoting the Wilderlands we started getting reports of failed campaigns. More than usual in my opinion. Most complaints were variations of "My players made characters and they didn't like not knowing what to do." Then it hit me, the reason I didn't have this problem is that I always make sure that the players have an initial context from which they can make their initial choices.

Now some players are perfectly happy with and relish starting out with a blank map and off they go exploring! But that is a small minority of the hobby. Most players want their choice to have meaning from the get go. Hence the initial context which amounts to a background for their characters. I have to stress this is not an exercise in fiction writing. It could be but only do it if that what you and the player wants. For many a bullet list of a three or four rumors is plenty.

For my campaigns, I do a little more but not much more. In the days before the first session, I will talk to the players and will ask what kind of character you are making and what you want to do with the character? I will try to make 2/3rd of the initial information or rumors that I give to the players relate to what they want to do with the character. The other 1/3rd is a combination of stuff that I think will interest the player but he didn't ask for, or random stuff. I will also try to develop a handful of NPC allies and antagonists for the PC.

I also manipulate this process. As I ask each player what their character is about and wants to do, I keep notes on areas of common interest. When I write each background, I focus on those area. Again as human referee we are not God, I can handle party splits for limited times but during the course of the campaign the party needs to stick together to make this happen. It work way better if I can manipulate the PCs goals to make them want to stick together.

Also note, I keep doing this throughout the campaign.

The Hexcrawl Setting
There are two major ways of formatting a setting. There is travelogue Fodor style that is basically a series of essays on various locations and personalities of the setting. This works great to get a broad picture of an area. But quickly bogs down when you are trying to present a mass of local level detail.

The hexcrawl format is a numbered hex grid. Every few hexes a description of what in there is created and keyed to that hex's number. THe advantage of this is that a lot of local level detail can be presented in a compact format. In certain genres, like science fiction, you can even pack a galaxy's worth of information.

Onto your specific questions.

May 13, 2016 8:52:38 GMT -5 bestialwarlust said:

How do I set it up so that players aren't overwhelmed with choices? 

I don't want to just have a town and dungeon nearby I want my players to have plenty to choose from how do I do that?

They need three to six details to feel like they have a choice of where to go in the beginning. More than six and they will start to feel lost.

May 13, 2016 8:52:38 GMT -5 bestialwarlust said:

How much should I start out with?

For a general overview, I would flesh thing out to three day travels at the start of the campaign for regional level detail. For local level detail, I would just detail a half day travel centered on the starting point.

May 13, 2016 8:52:38 GMT -5 bestialwarlust said:

Above all I just want to make it fun and help keep the group engaged in the setting. I'll be running it for different groups of people what advice do you have?

Make sure that the consequences are plausible and interesting for what the PCs did. And for god sake make sure you mix in positive consequences when warranted. Resist the urge to have the NPC screw the PCs at every opportunity. If this happens the PCs will rapidly quit trying to interact with the setting in favor of solely killing things and taking their stuff.

As for running different groups at the same time, do what all the old referee say and do good timekeeping. I also recommend keeping them in separate geographical areas of the setting. (two or three days travel apart) Or if you want to use a single city, make sure their respective social network don't intersect at too many points. Otherwise it will get weird. But the good news as you develop experience you will find that you can handle the weirdness more easily. Just remember a consequence only has to be plausible, it doesn't have to be the most probable.

Anyway that my longish advice, hope it helps.

[robkuntz]

You get four pieces of equal length planks of wood, a load of sand and...

[Deleted]

HAR!

[mormonyoyoman]

May 13, 2016 14:43:36 GMT -5 Admin Pete said:

I will let this ride hear for a while and I will likely do a forum cleanup eventually but not in the immediate future. Our (my wife and I) 20th anniversary trip is coming up fast.

Congratulations, Newlyweds!

[mormonyoyoman]

The only way I know to make a sand box is to put boxing gloves on a sand and force him or her or it into the ring. When I tried this, a sand just fell apart and lost by default. It hasn't been able to show its face since.

Or before, for that matter.

[randyb]

Sept 9, 2016 15:59:21 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

The only way I know to make a sand box is to put boxing gloves on a sand and force him or her or it into the ring. When I tried this, a sand just fell apart and lost by default. It hasn't been able to show its face since.

Or before, for that matter.

Feeling a bit punchy?

[mormonyoyoman]

Sept 9, 2016 17:22:21 GMT -5 randyb said:

Feeling a bit punchy?

Or Judy.

[robkuntz]

I have no "construction" advice other than aforementioned. But on the other hand (the one not holding the hammer): Do a rumor sheet and see what they bite on... There. At least I am on topic!

[mormonyoyoman]

Sept 9, 2016 18:36:58 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

At least I am on topic!

I live to be off topic at all times, in all places.

[Deleted]

I'll have more time in a week or so, this is a topic I'm interested in.

[robkuntz]

Sept 9, 2016 19:16:57 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

Sept 9, 2016 18:36:58 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

At least I am on topic!

I live to be off topic at all times, in all places.

Well you failed here, as you are right on your own topic of being off topic.

[mormonyoyoman]

Brain hurt. Illogical! Illogical! Norman! Norman! (fsszzzzz-)

[bestialwarlust]

Sept 10, 2016 20:16:10 GMT -5 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I'll have more time in a week or so, this is a topic I'm interested in.

I look forward to your thoughts on this.

[bestialwarlust]

Sept 9, 2016 18:36:58 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

I have no "construction" advice other than aforementioned. But on the other hand (the one not holding the hammer): Do a rumor sheet and see what they bite on... There. At least I am on topic!

That's always good advice. So many forget the usefulness of rumors.

[robkuntz]

Sept 13, 2016 17:27:58 GMT -5 bestialwarlust said:

Sept 9, 2016 18:36:58 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

I have no "construction" advice other than aforementioned. But on the other hand (the one not holding the hammer): Do a rumor sheet and see what they bite on... There. At least I am on topic!

That's always good advice. So many forget the usefulness of rumors.

A major part of my arsenal while DMing.  Creates lots of usable data as well as jumping off points for reducing thrusts of player activity to final focal points.  Gary and I both used it as preliminary "polling" of what caught player interests as we would never railroad stuff; and then from there fleshed out details as needed and warranted. Keeps many backgrounds variously imprinted on the foreground matter even as the group is engaged with another slant. I created (still create) a lot of World Noise and never let one "band" dominate.  You might see this if one closely studies my published adventures as the majority are slanted information-wise towards wider campaign uses.

[bestialwarlust]

Sept 14, 2016 8:25:33 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

Sept 13, 2016 17:27:58 GMT -5 bestialwarlust said:

That's always good advice. So many forget the usefulness of rumors.

A major part of my arsenal while DMing.  Creates lots of usable data as well as jumping off points for reducing thrusts of player activity to final focal points.  Gary and I both used it as preliminary "polling" of what caught player interests as we would never railroad stuff; and then from there fleshed out details as needed and warranted. Keeps many backgrounds variously imprinted on the foreground matter even as the group is engaged with another slant. I created (still create) a lot of World Noise and never let one "band" dominate.  You might see this if one closely studies my published adventures as the majority are slanted information-wise towards wider campaign uses.

Good advice. I agree as creating as much "noise" as possible allows you too see what things interest the group the most. Which makes it easier to craft future rumors and adventure hooks that will get your players really into the game.

[robkuntz]

Sept 14, 2016 10:04:46 GMT -5 bestialwarlust said:

Sept 14, 2016 8:25:33 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

A major part of my arsenal while DMing.  Creates lots of usable data as well as jumping off points for reducing thrusts of player activity to final focal points.  Gary and I both used it as preliminary "polling" of what caught player interests as we would never railroad stuff; and then from there fleshed out details as needed and warranted. Keeps many backgrounds variously imprinted on the foreground matter even as the group is engaged with another slant. I created (still create) a lot of World Noise and never let one "band" dominate.  You might see this if one closely studies my published adventures as the majority are slanted information-wise towards wider campaign uses.

Good advice. I agree as creating as much "noise" as possible allows you too see what things interest the group the most. Which makes it easier to craft future rumors and adventure hooks that will get your players really into the game.

Right.  It creates a synergistic tidal wave of information sources and application avenues for them.

[Admin Pete]

I would also suggest that you look at everything you can find about Blackmoor(The First Fantasy Campaign) as it is IMO the quintessential Sandbox campaign and anything you can find about the original Greyhawk campaign, in addition, I would like to know more about Kalibruhn by robkuntz and how a world designed Top Down works as a sandbox campiagn, I anticipate that the new El Raja Key Archive, RJK Collected Works on DVD will answer a lot of those questions and/or help me to forumulate questions that I want to ask. And of course he has just told us that he does much of it thorugh rumors (World Noise). I like using rumors because it is one of the best ways to find out what really interests your players and it is one of the best ways to get them to answer that question.

I have never experienced it with a group, only an individual now and then(and then only in recent years, never bitd), but some people do not know how to respond to choices and become paralyzed. I am not sure what I would do if the entire group was decision challenged; however, since it is only an individual now and then, the other players help the person move on and accept their decision and after a while that person starts to learn how to make decisions.

[robkuntz]

Sept 14, 2016 12:18:48 GMT -5 Admin Pete said:

I would also suggest that you look at everything you can find about Blackmoor(The First Fantasy Campaign) as it is IMO the quintessential Sandbox campaign and anything you can find about the original Greyhawk campaign, in addition, I would like to know more about Kalibruhn by robkuntz and how a world designed Top Down works as a sandbox campiagn, I anticipate that the new El Raja Key Archive, RJK Collected Works on DVD will answer a lot of those questions and/or help me to forumulate questions that I want to ask. And of course he has just told us that he does much of it thorugh rumors (World Noise). I like using rumors because it is one of the best ways to find out what really interests your players and it is one of the best ways to get them to answer that question.

I have never experienced it with a group, only an individual now and then(and then only in recent years, never bitd), but some people do not know how to respond to choices and become paralyzed. I am not sure what I would do if the entire group was decision challenged; however, since it is only an individual now and then, the other players help the person move on and accept their decision and after a while that person starts to learn how to make decisions.

The world noise works at all levels of party integration with the world, but seems to take upon its own expanding form at name level where, in extended campaigns, the PCs give individual orders about their backgrounded intentions, this while still interfacing, as it might occur, in the party for adventuring purposes.  It becomes interesting in this latter regard when the PCs themselves, and often unbeknownst to them, then get entered as part of the current batch of rumors!  This happened many times to PCs, either individually or collectively, in the Kalibruhn and Greyhawk campaigns.

[Deleted]

I'm going to nibble away at this bit by bit rather than try to do it all in one slug. This is all based on my memories of Greyhawk and my own Ram's Horn campaign.

First... start small. Draw 1 or 2 dungeon levels and say "it's a mile out of 'town'." Let the "town" be generic for now. Tell the players "You've heard rumors of great treasures and great dangers in the old ruined dungeon." Don't make it a "module" style dungeon with a "target" and a "goal" and a "top villain." Just make it a dungeon full of neat stuff.

The purpose of this is to get you used to the referee's role, and players used to having real choices. If they go North, South, East, or West is up to them, and there is no "right" answer.

More later.

[robertsconley]

Sept 14, 2016 12:18:48 GMT -5 Admin Pete said:

I would also suggest that you look at everything you can find about Blackmoor(The First Fantasy Campaign) as it is IMO the quintessential Sandbox campaign and anything you can find about the original Greyhawk campaign, in addition, I would like to know more about Kalibruhn by robkuntz and how a world designed Top Down works as a sandbox campiagn, I anticipate that the new El Raja Key Archive, RJK Collected Works on DVD will answer a lot of those questions and/or help me to forumulate questions that I want to ask. And of course he has just told us that he does much of it thorugh rumors (World Noise). I like using rumors because it is one of the best ways to find out what really interests your players and it is one of the best ways to get them to answer that question.

I have never experienced it with a group, only an individual now and then(and then only in recent years, never bitd), but some people do not know how to respond to choices and become paralyzed. I am not sure what I would do if the entire group was decision challenged; however, since it is only an individual now and then, the other players help the person move on and accept their decision and after a while that person starts to learn how to make decisions.

Maybe Gronan can shed some light on this, my impression that the initial starting context of Blackmoor was you had a group of players playing good guys and there goal was to help Blackmoor defend itself against the bad guys (also another group of players) and that both side could do anything that make sense to do as their individual characters. And the specifics of how each side achieved their goal was also left open in the air. 

While it was a sandbox, it had an initial focus that provided a initial push for the players to do their thing.

[Admin Pete]

My understanding and robkuntz can correct me if I am mistaken, is that the "good" guys beat the "bad" guys and after that they all wanted to play the good guys and Dave Arneson took over the roles of the "bad" guys as the ref. Although I also understand that as players grew and established their own domains, there was still conflict played out between players it was just not generally at low levels anymore. I don't view an initial focus as being non-sandbox. A sandbox may have several points of focus, in addition to the rumours/"World Noise".

[robkuntz]

Sept 20, 2016 16:52:22 GMT -5 Admin Pete said:

My understanding and robkuntz can correct me if I am mistaken, is that the "good" guys beat the "bad" guys and after that they all wanted to play the good guys and Dave Arneson took over the roles of the "bad" guys as the ref. Although I also understand that as players grew and established their own domains, there was still conflict played out between players it was just not generally at low levels anymore. I don't view an initial focus as being non-sandbox. A sandbox may have several points of focus, in addition to the rumours/"World Noise".

I have access to the time stream accounts but would have to adduce between the campaigns and when the Brausteins moved to the dungeon (I have no time for that, currently, to go through all of his newsletters that I have access to).  It appears that Dave moved from Brausteins to Medieval Brown Steins [sic] when he invented the dungeon complex and then after that the campaign broadened, and that there were already chainmail campaigns in progress that then got merged into it.  This from his newsletters.  

Sandbox is a very limiting term and depends on how one describes it.  It's convenient for describing your own take of it but I do not ascribe to a set in stone How TO process or a grouping of "salient" elements.  Way too expansive to be generalized in that way and then reversing it back to what Arneson may or may not have done as a comparison.

It's hard to reduce this point you are making to a logical conclusion.  People, as I note in my book on Arneson, should have asked these questions of him when he was living.  And that has become the same with myself in the majority of cases.  I still live but see massive speculation upon those days and as forwarded as real fact in many cases, even though I can in the majority of cases answer those things that people are fitfully going on about.  Back to Arneson.  The Blackmoor Documentary that I took part in before moving to France and which I wrote a special preface for will answer some of these questions and no doubt raise some more.  My book on Arneson--finished but on hold for release until the DVD clears the launching pad--will answer some more questions and pose some more routes for examination which I feel are much more important from a design POV.

[robertsconley]

Sept 20, 2016 17:48:51 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

Sandbox is a very limiting term and depends on how one describes it.

The term sandbox campaign that everybody uses these days in the context of a type of tabletop roleplaying campaign was coined in the mid 2000s as part of the promotion of the Necromancer Games Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set. A bunch of us who are authors of the boxed set, I was one of them, were looking for a way to describe the way we used the Wilderlands in our respective campaigns. We adopted term sandbox campaign from open world computer games (Minecraft, Valve's Garry's Mod, etc). These computer games were described as sandboxes where you could do anything you want with the tools. While we all had our own take on the Wilderlands pretty much all of us used it as an open world where players can go anywhere they want. I didn't come up with the term, but when I saw it in the email mailing list I started using it and so did the other authors. From there it spread and spread.

I want to stress unlike some of the other stuff that crop up with the various revival and renaissance we never claimed that it was how people gamed back in the day. We just claimed how that we gamed when we used the Wilderlands in our campaign.

Today, 2016, the term Sandbox Campaign is used by me (and others) to describe campaigns where the direction is primarily set by the players acting as their characters first. My job as referee of a sandbox campaign is to adjudicate what they do as their character but also to follow up on the consequence of what they do and not as their character. The closest the sandbox campaign comes to a more traditional RPG campaign is at the start when I layout the initial situation. After that it purely drive by a cycle of the players doing stuff and me figure out what happens next in the setting.

As a final note sandbox was used infrequently before in reference to sand tabled used miniature wargaming. Also in terms how D&D is like returning to a childhood sandbox or used interchangeably with campaign. However it was not used as a type of roleplaying campaign. Computer games got it from the early sources, we on the Boxed Set project in turn borrowed from computer games.

Some examples include:

Dragon #25, Tim Kask

He still clings to the shibboleth that wargamers are classic cases of arrested development, never having gotten out of the sandbox and toy soldiers syndrome of childhood.

Dragon #247, Page 123

Grubb has a phrase for working with existing games, settings, and characters: playing in other people's sandboxes."

Later in the issue

Having gone freelance three years ago, Grubb has explored new sandboxes. I worked on Mag Force 7's Wing Commander and Star Trek (original series) trading card games, ...
In this issue sandbox was used interchangeably with how most Roleplaying gamer use campaign