The Structure/Sandbox Balance

[AugustArria]

I think this is an issue a lot of GMs struggle with. I know I do.

We see RPs of all kinds. Games where the world has been constructed in great detail, with practically limitless possibilities for character creation, but no real plot to follow. You let the players come up with character, toss them into a world, and see what they get up to. It's a typical sandbox RP, pretty common. Then there's GMs who come up with a very detailed story. It likely takes place in an already established world, since they want to put effort into the plot rather than the surroundings. It might have a specific list of characters that need filling out. They might already be named and detailed, they just need someone to play. It's a very structured RP, more like an interactive story than the sandbox RP. And then there's something in the middle. Perhaps a specific setting and a small variety of potential characters, but with a plot that is left to be driven by the characters, with minimal direction from the GM. It finds a balance between the sandbox and the structured.

So what's your preferred balance? Do you think it's better to guide the players along a story, or to let them loose, to come up with what they will? What balances have worked best in the past?

I'd love to see examples of both kinds of RPs that have both succeeded and failed, and why you think they did so.

AA :)

[Patcharoo]

I prefer to have an ending, then work towards that ending as my primary goal, giving people free reign to wander all over the place in the interim.

[TheFinalOne]

Create a central goal and then a bunch of sub-goals and let the skinner box do its magic.

[ViceVersus]

I think I've gone on this rant before, but I'll do it again. Too often, the problem I see with roleplays is that they rely too much on that sandbox aspect. GMs do a fantastic job of creating a detailed, rich, textured world for their players to roll around in, but they don't do a good enough job of establishing a central conflict, from which the themes and goals and consequences can be drawn from.

The trouble with role-players is we tend to just expand, expand, expand and expand. We are both limited and enabled by the fact that writing can be anything we want it to be. Sometimes it gets away from the idea of a handful of characters all on a journey together, and it gets away from a story.

If I join an open-world roleplay, it is usually to explore some sort of facet in a character I have been wanting to write, who would fit the perimeters of the world. Joining with that plan in mind means that I'm not really in it for the long haul.

If I join a roleplay with a clearly defined plot - not necessarily being led by my nose from one scene to the next, but where the GM has a few key points that he or she needs his players to hit, allowing free reign until we get there, then I feel not only a lot more comfortable, but I know that the GM has the powers of storytelling, more so than one who can create a fantasy setting and just "see what happens."

This changed tendency of mine has come from going to school for Screenwriting. The trouble I had when I was writing was that I kept opening up new possibilities for characters, and spreading out, out, further up and further in. I was wandering away from the first part of the story, not just the first part, but the thing that I could sum up in one line, make interesting, and get peoples' attentions with.

So, in summation, I prefer a story where the Game Master has scaled things back a bit. This does not lose you some of the wonderful freedom that comes with writing, but it certainly ensures that the roleplay won't get lost in the Gobi Desert of a third act.

[AugustArria]

Exactly my problem with the open world. It's so hard to be in it for the long-haul. No one knows what they should be doing. It's like tossing a bunch of people into the ocean. They flounder around, maybe grab on to each other for a while, but eventually, they drown, one by one. Bit of a bleak metaphor, but it seems to fit well with the sandbox experiences I've had in the past. You'll get loads of good characters, but unless someone's really willing to take charge and make something happen, they're just going to wander around for a while before getting bored. It's why I really try to avoid all the school/academy/university/institution type RPs, as they typically just throw a bunch of people into a space and ask them to make something happen.

Personally, I don't often feel comfortable as a player in someone else's RP to really make a big event happen, even if it's all sandbox. I have to really know the GM and the other players, and even then it can be difficult. The school/academy RPs I find typically just settle into romance plotlines, since all the characters are comfortable doing is just interacting with one another.

And also, I've found that if the GM doesn't have a role in shaping the story any more than the players do, they can lose interest just as easily as the players. And it's pretty hard to care about an RP when the GM doesn't seem to.

So yeah, I think there needs to be a central goal, at the very least. Something to keep in mind when building characters, so that they have something to tie them together, keep them going forward. Otherwise, I don't see how the RP can come to any kind of meaningful conclusion.

[ViceVersus]

I know of a few sandbox RPs that exist for the sake of teaching the finer points of writing and roleplaying. Each scenario is different when the players go in character, which allows for modification of what's happening, and what's being taut. That's the major advantage to a sandbox without any intentional plot. Having a general fantasy setting with a few rules allows for the players to craft their own stories. But in a roleplay meant to stay afloat on its own momentum .. yeah, there will certainly issues.

These are very good points.

[Paradigm]

I think the problem with GM's in open world environments is creating a plot that isn't conflicting enough. There's a plot, there's a theme, but it's not too deep in the characters minds.

Example with bad plot: Zombie sandbox. Well what the hell am I supposed to do? Create a character and survive? That's a bore. Sure there's a theme, you have to survive, and there's a weak plot. But that's just it - it's a weak plot.
Example with good plot: How about a group of characters that discover a possible cure for the zombie apocalypse who must go on a long perilous journey to find it and utilize it? Or even better yet, the characters are rather investigating the plot instead of being given the task of ending the plot. They're trying to discover why it's like that, to deepen the story, not end it. It's no fun if you already know how it's going to end. Keep that part a secret.

Long story short, I personally find no fun in a roleplay that isn't open with possibilities, but there has to be a central overlying plot that is the first thing in every characters minds for it to last; however, the characters can't know every aspect of the plot because then it's predictable. It's like reading a book once you've already read the entire plot synopsis... it's just not the same.

[Mr_Doomed]

When it comes down to it, I think the ones that are successful have three endings in mind. There is the surface one that all the players know about and then there is the ending that only the GM and co-GM (I suggest you have a co-GM) only know about. The third ending is the end that the players have in mind for their characters. Each one of these need to be established or else interest will be lost. I will go through each of these three endings with you guys now.

The Ending We All Know About: This is what you want to set up for the characters in your introduction. There is a bad guy that needs to be killed, there is a army that needs to be stopped, the ancient artifact needs to be found. Whatever it is, the players need to know about this goal. However they get to that end is up to them, and if need be, put obstacles in the way so they don't get to it in the first five posts. Make it the overreaching arch of the entire story.

What only the GM knows: The GM should always know more and the ending should be one of those things. This is the twist that you want to give. The mystery that needs to be solved. It is what brings about all the major plot points that can't be explained by anyone except the GM, but the GM of course isn't going to tell anyone about it. All you have to do is remind the player every once in a while that there is something that can't be explained. Whether you tell the players OOC in in game doesn't really matter.
This is much like any good story in a way. You know how you expect things to end, but there always seems to be a twist every once in a while that makes you rethink that idea you had.

The Player's Ending: As a player, I know how important your character is to you. I love every character that I'v been creating recently. They all have their fun little quirks and whatnot, but to me it is not enough to have that. Before I begin playing, I want to have an end in mind for my characters as well. Will my character live or die, will s/he be happy or sad, etc... . All of these details are important for me if I want to understand my character fully. The best part about this is that as the story changes, so can the end for my character as well. One day I can choose to have the character die in the end, but when I learn something new about the story, I realize that my character would probably not die given those circumstances.
An example is a character, his goal was to be an teacher of his profession and that was my goal for the character. As the story progressed, people around him were dying and his own personal goals had to change and thus his ending had to change as well.
Where you want to see your character in the end is just as important as the other two endings because this is what keeps the players motivated as they want to see their character to the end. This is why I suggest that you try to remind your players to have an end goal in mind for their characters as they progress in the story.

With these three things, I believe one can almost never go wrong. It allows for sandboxy style play that can attract players, still be rigid enough so they players don't wander off too far away from the beaten path and still be fun to play. Sure, you might have the odd person drop out, but there should be a good enough following of people (hopefully).

[shadowty]

What about side switching. Where there is conflict there are sides. Can characters simply change the side they were on when the roleplay started or simply become neutral and not get involved on either side?
What if a sides complety changes its goals during the roleplay?
What about an imposible goal? A goal that simly can not be achieved, set as like this from the very start.

[Doug]

I've spent quite some time over the past years roleplaying, and for much of that time I have also served as a GM. In my opinion, the balance really depends upon what type of roleplay you are looking at and the level of writers involved. Obviously lower level writers will probably need a little more help getting from point A to point B, and that is what a structured GM moderated plot accomplishes. However, the higher level of writers you have, the less structure there needs to be. With that said, in most types of roleplay there needs to be structure on some level. Be it an opponent to fight, and object to seek, or whatever you fancy, a character based roleplay needs focus--otherwise it will become diffuse and eventually die an ignominious death of boredom and disinterest.

Not so, however, for my preferred type of roleplay. In the nation roleplay, in my opinion which is based off of experience, you can get away with little to no structure at all. The reason for this is that as nations interact and forge treaties/wage war, a plot develops on its own. While the same could probably be said about a character based roleplay too, the difference here lies in the players involved. Because characters are just that, single characters, any interactions of those characters with other characters must be by way of another writer.

Say, for example, you have five characters in a sandbox. One of the writers decides to set out on a quest to find a magical sword of some variety, and two others follow. One decides that he is going to oppose them in their quest and try and take the sword for himself. Ok, that sounds good so far. . . but what about the remaining character? He doesn't want anything to do with the sword, be it that it is a sad fact of character development that he doesn't even like swords, or perhaps the writer simply wants nothing to do with the sword in question. Either way, that leaves this final character stranded and unable to really interact with the world while the sword quest is going on--and the writer is likely to leave. Combine this effect with the fact that a lot of people don't like making up quests on the fly, and you have a recipe for disaster if you attempt to create a complete sandbox in a character based roleplay.

Let's compare this with a nation roleplay. In a nation roleplay each writer controls not one character, but as many characters as he so desires (and he can develop all these infinite characters just as well as a writer with a single character, there is no rule preventing him from doing so). As a result, the writer in a nation roleplay does not need to interact with anyone in order to carry out character development or run through a storyline.

To make up an example, say we have those same five writers--only they each control a nation. One nation declares war on another, and is joined in an alliance with two others. Here we have the same situation, really, as in the first case. Four nations are embroiled in war leaving the fifth to its own devices. There difference here is that the fifth nation has plenty left to do while the war wages. Even if he chooses not to involve himself directly in the war (a wise choice), there are still plenty of other things to do. Because nations are, well, nations not every single citizen of the nation is going to be on the frontlines. As a result the lone nation can still interact with the warring nations without needing to be in the middle of the war the entire time. Furthermore, a nation writer can theoretically write novels worth of text without needing another writer to interact with. There is plenty going on inside of the nation to occupy his time while the war wages on, be it a civil war, political election, major trial--really it could be anything, or any combinations of things.

In addition to this, the sorts of plots that are self generated in a nation roleplay are far more interesting by nature than those of a single character roleplay because they are self building. Take again the example of the sword. Once that particular quest is completed, either another quest must be taken up or the roleplay is over. However, in a nation roleplay this is not the case. In the war example above, say that after the war the single nation loses (you'll recall it was 3v1). Well where does that leave the plot? We still have an occupation now to write about now. What sort of treaty ends the war? How do the three nations split the land? How does the loser cope with losing, and how do his people react to foreign rule (if that is the case when the war ends)? In reality a nation roleplay is, by nature, unending. And this fact would lend itself easily to the unstructured sandbox style of roleplay.

Those are my thoughts on the matter anyway, take them as you will.

[AugustArria]

Huh. You know... I can't say I've ever seen a "nation roleplay" as you put it. I think I've seen people propose the idea, but never seen one operate before. I can't say it sounds too appealing, from what I gather. It seems like it would require a very mature group of players to be willing to work with each other, especially if wars came about, as no one wants to just lose, right? I feel like you'd have to know who you were writing with, else there would be endless bickering over battles and such. I mean, I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of how it all works, since I've never done one, but I feel like it's a very specialized type of RP, and quite a minority. I imagine there are many people who find it quite enjoyable, but to me it just seems... well, very dry.

What about side switching. Where there is conflict there are sides. Can characters simply change the side they were on when the roleplay started or simply become neutral and not get involved on either side?
What if a sides complety changes its goals during the roleplay?
What about an imposible goal? A goal that simly can not be achieved, set as like this from the very start.

So about "side switching" as you put it, why not? There is no limit to the choices a character can make. So if the GM happens to make multiple sides in their roleplay, and it makes sense for a character to want to flip sides, why shouldn't they be able to do it? How about a Star Wars RP? Say a Jedi character made some choices that led them to the dark side. There's a character switching sides. I've done it with a few of my characters in the past. It's pretty fun.

As for a side completely changing their goals... I'm not sure what you're asking. Is that okay? I don't know, I guess the rule is... as long as it makes sense, anything's okay! That's roleplaying for ya!

And impossible goals... sure! Tons of characters set out to do things that are doomed to fail from the start. They usually don't know they're screwed before they begin, though. But it's certainly important to ensure that even if a goal can't be achieved, the entire effort doesn't feel like a failure. Something has to be gained through the journey. It's all very greek tragedy. The protags die, or fail, but there was still a point to everything.

[Doug]

Huh. You know... I can't say I've ever seen a "nation roleplay" as you put it. I think I've seen people propose the idea, but never seen one operate before. I can't say it sounds too appealing, from what I gather. It seems like it would require a very mature group of players to be willing to work with each other, especially if wars came about, as no one wants to just lose, right? I feel like you'd have to know who you were writing with, else there would be endless bickering over battles and such. I mean, I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of how it all works, since I've never done one, but I feel like it's a very specialized type of RP, and quite a minority. I imagine there are many people who find it quite enjoyable, but to me it just seems... well, very dry.

Yeah, it most certainly does require a mature group of people to work out well, but the end result can be amazing. While, as you say, many view them as dry, or simply as a hole filled with nothing but bickering and godmodding, a well written nation roleplay can be the most amazing thing. It offers an amazing opportunity to work on character development and the like, given the fact that you are in control of virtually infinite characters each with their own unique personalities and flaws and can be put in just about any situation you so desire, be it a politician, general, businessman, soldier, or just an average citizen on the street.

Now, if the roleplay is poorly written it tends to look like a turn based strategy game on paper (which is, as you say, quite dull). However if you have a group of writers who are willing to take advantage of the character development opportunities. Who create deep characters and interact with each other and other nations in meaningful ways. Then you get what is, in my opinion, one of the most enjoyable experiences you can have in forum roleplaying. I've been a writer in many nation roleplays (or civilization as I used to call them) and a GM in a couple too, and there has never been a dull moment after the first few days after the bickerers and godmodders have been sufficiently weeded out.

[Kurokiku]

I suppose there are any number of good ways to structure a plot, and I've participated in pretty much everything from the "here's a world, create a character and make stuff happen" sandbox to the "and this person is of this profession and fits into the plot this way here's the goal and how we're going to get there" really rigid plot. I agree that the middle is usually the best place to be, but I'm of the opinion that nearly anything can work with a group of people who are willing to make it happen.

That said, I've found it better for the players (though perhaps a little tougher on myself as the GM) to really work at the story so that their choices matter, even if you set up options A and B and they go with the option C that you never thought of. My approach in the games I GM'ed was to have basically a set number of events that were going to happen, barring player interference. If characters were able to act in certain ways or discover certain pieces of information, the plot (which I mostly kept to myself) changed accordingly. Sometimes, they discovered those vital pieces of information. Other times, they didn't, and things changed. The draw (I hope) of this was that they knew who the villain was and what he wanted, but not how he was going to go about getting it. That meant their characters got to do real detective work, and the outcomes of their choices, interactions, and plot interference had major impact, sometimes in ways they weren't anticipating.

That said, having to come up with so many alternate scenarios in what was only a barely-linear plot was kind of difficult, and I don't recommend it if you don't have the time to give it a lot of thought. I could run exactly the same games again, and they'd turn out totally differently just because the players and their characters changed. In that sense, it was sandbox-y, but the plot was always there to move things along when the players were ready for it, which helped balance it a little.

Now that the far too extended personal anecdote is over with, I'd point out that this is only one way to do it. It worked for me, as both games were written to completion, but it's not the only approach I've seen that works. So much is, I would reiterate, dependent on the willingness of the writers to invest themselves in the experience. That said, to maximize my future chances of success I would stay away from sandboxes, but further away from overly-determined character slots, because I think the biggest turn-off for a large number of players is feeling like it doesn't matter what they do, the plot is going to go on its merry way all the same.

Tl;dr: Make the players feel like what they do matters.