Rules Only: Rails vs. Sandbox/Freeform

[kilemall]

Let's get this forum party started with a basic question.

To do some real prep, one would likely design something like an Adventure with facility/planet maps, NPCs, plots, etc.

But players are given to carving out their own paths, which seem to steer straight away from set scenarios.

One can wing it, which has its own charms not the least of which is determining by play action what the player entertainment biome is, quite independent of the referee's prior conceptions.

I'm thinking the 'right' mix is something like Taurus, more a play environment then rails adventure. Perhaps we should design more system play enviornments and less adventures.

Unless one creates facility/adventures that get a whitewash and placed wherever it is convenient, with alterations specific to the system milieu one calls it upon.

This impinges directly upon how a referee prepares for session content.

Opinions? Philosophy?

Edit- the Prefix is understandable, but there are universal all-versions issues, perhaps an additional prefix that handles such questions?

 

[rhialto]

I'm predominantly in the "wing-it" camp, and have been using the old FASA "Sky Raiders" trilogy of adventures over the past year or so (yeah, we don't play that often). They're a mix of site-based and scripted (the former due to "here's the situation in this episode, how it gets solved is up to the PCs", the latter due to some heavy-handed "the PCs will be forced to do X to get to the site", or "ensure NPC so-and-so survives for the next episode"). I mostly ignore the scripted parts, which lead to the PCs solving in unexpected fashion, or in one case short-circuiting completely, significant situations in the script. But since they were interested in the overall situation (solve the Sky Raiders mystery), it didn't derail anything.

My goal was to use the trilogy as an extended introduction to CT, which worked: they all have a much better understanding of MTU, their characters, the rules, etc.

Now the group has just mis-jumped out of the Saulente system, in an old Sky Raiders scout ship, and I have no idea where they're going to go: I'm going to present them with a subsector map and some library data on it and see what happens.

 

[coliver988]

To paraphrase: no plan survives contact with the players (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Elder).

I do a lot of world planning and building, mostly because it is fun, but also to present a lot of possible adventure/leisure/exploration situations. Sadly my two current players are much more passive, so for them, railroading is almost required.

As per the previous comments, you need to strike a balance between what you want and what the players want. If I ref a game again, I'll start with asking what sort of game they really want to play and then tailor the worlds in that direction. It all boils down to the player mix to me: I've had games in the past that had a couple of very active players that drive the entire game, to the last game where I have to almost lead them by the nose. I think the last game, if we had 1 more player who was more of an active leader, it would have been an entirely different game.

But at least we had fun, or at least I know I did

 

[flykiller]

Opinions?

referees play with traveller - designing pretty scenery with fantastic creatures, imagining engaging cultures with thousand-year histories, growing interesting non-player characters with epic motivations. but players want action.

One can wing it

"winging it", combined with crude off-the-cuff dice-driven determinations, allows instant and detailed response to a given game situation.

Perhaps we should design more system play enviornments and less adventures.

players frequently are not interested in environments.

 

[baktegon]

I'm currently refereeing our second weekly campaign of Traveller (MgT 2E rules). Our first campaign was based on the Linkworlds Cluster T20 campaign setting book (in the 993 era), along with Mongoose's The Calixcuel Incident adventure throw in near the end, and some making things up along the way.

I liked the Linkworlds Cluster book a lot because it provided a sense of space, background info, and nice outlines for who and what is going on in the worlds of that cluster. For all but one of my players this was our first time playing Traveller so I appreciated a written reference of tone for the universe.

The players seemed to enjoy the various scenarios that were on each planet. Some we played fairly close to the book, others changed significantly based on the player choices. At the end of the campaign everyone made positive comments about the experience overall.

Before starting this second campaign (continuing into 994, and a cluster trailing over in the Matarishan subsector) I asked my players what each of them enjoyed about the previous campaign. I was somewhat surprised to learn that all of them liked a different thing, with nearly no crossover. Some liked exploring derelicts, others liked battling a huge mob heckbent on putting them in the ground, still others liked thinking through the political maneuvering of a world.

Since no Linkworlds-esque text exists for the worlds we're visiting now (Daggar's Edge and it's J1 compatriots) I've had to collect more info on my own. I've created a new strategy to deal with what my four (sometimes five) players are interested in.

I've looked at the UWP for each system and written up a short description paragraph for each, to remind myself what's there, and to have as library data when the players ask me What's The Word. I've collected a bunch of one-page, or small pre-written adventures and assigned them to each system. I also have a few free-floating adventures that happen In Space, so I can use those whenever the players are not on-world.

I'm comfortable using adventures and ideas from everywhere, for example, Daggar's Edge seemed like a neat place to have Night City from Cyberpunk 2020 set, so I domed the whole thing and now it sits on a tidally-locked vacuum world in the perpetual twilight of it's habitable area. I'm running a tweaked system-less adventure set in Las Vegas in my version of Night City, that all boils down to a tale of noir-flavored intrigue and adventure.

We're only three sessions in so I haven't had a chance to run any of my single adventures but I think they'll fit in well. Since I have two or three per planet, I feel like I can guide the players into these stories while still letting them make choices about where to go or what to do. I'm more or less prepared for wherever they want to go in the cluster, and have a few B-plot adventure ideas to push them along. Hopefully I'll have enough to suit the interests of all the players. Time will tell!

Wow this is long and ramble-y and I apologize.

 

[whartung]

referees spend much time playing with traveller - designing pretty scenery with fantastic creatures, imagining engaging cultures with thousand-year histories, growing interesting non-player characters with epic motivations. but players are interested in action.

Everyone has their own anecdote, here's mine.

Ref prepped a small civilization with a TED essentially worshiping a computer. When the ships computer had a problem the task for the party was to worm their way in and essentially convince/steal the "God" from the society to get their ship on line.

Instead, the players realized, and the ref let them, that the computer on the small craft was "enough" to solve the problem of the ship, and bypass all of the planning, thought, and design the ref had gone through.

The final line from the party: "Oh, and Chris, we're going to nuke your city from orbit."

And a good time was had by all.

As had been said, no pre-planned adventure survives first contact.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

I ran a campaign based on the Stargate franchise, and that used Traveller rules - mostly CT, but with some influence from MT, TNE, MgT, and lots of "Winging It". Some important things that I learned include . . .

• Players want action. Give them something to do - something that involves taking risks, resolving conflicts, making profit, or simply saving their hides. Just remember than for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Negotiate a trade deal, and trigger a labor strike. Deliver the medical supplies, and offend the religious order. Save the princess, and precipitate a socialist revolt. Run away from the howling mob, and leave behind any hope of getting paid. Ask too many questions, and attract the too much attention. Operative Quote: "The distraction they've been ignoring is really the main action they've been avoiding."

• Players want information. Give them maps. Give them descriptions. Give them photo-shopped images. Give them what they want, but don't give them everything they ask for. You have the UWP to a world with an an Ancients' site; but where is it? The man in the yellow hat is your contact; but these people have fifteen words for 'yellow', and each one means something different. You have the key; but where is the lock that it fits? Give the players the information they need in bits and pieces, and then leave it up to them to put all the pieces together in the right order, and to figure out what the missing pieces mean. Operative quote: "Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing."

• Players want rewards. Unless your name is "Monty Haul", promise them anything, but make them work for it - and I mean blood, toil, sweat, and tears. They saved the world and earned a far trader? Sure. All they gotta do now is pay off a years' worth of storage fees, update their licenses, have the title transferred, and obtain an exit visa . . . or figure out a way to bypass all of these silly 'legalities' and take possession immediately, thus acquiring a bounty on their heads and a warrant for their arrest. One way or another, the player must pay for what they receive, so make them pay. Operative quote: "Make them pay; and if possible, make them pay again."

• Players want choices. Choices have consequences. Cause-and-Effect is in play. Accept the Baron's offer to get paid for a little discrete burglary, fall for the waif's plea to return him to his family, or do another pick-up and delivery job for the going rate? One could get the PCs framed for murder, one could get them framed for kidnapping, and one could get them framed for smuggling - of course, each of these comes with a promise of tens of thousands of credits when the job is done, as well; and who's to say that the worst might actually happen? Besides, even if they do happen, give the PCs (just barely) enough time to find the real murderer, expose the kid's accomplices, and find out who the real smugglers are. Operative Quote: "Anything they do can bring them both rewards and penalties: Doing the Right Thing, Doing the Wrong Thing, Doing the Smart Thing, Doing the Stupid Thing, Doing Everything They Could Possibly Do, and even Doing Nothing At All."

And finally . . .

• Shameless Shill for My Favorite Author: If you haven't yet read Howard Taylor's "The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries", I strongly recommend that you do. It contains valuable wisdom for players and referees alike.

 

[creativehum]

Smart stuff...

I particularly like what you mean by "action." By that word you don't mean "mindless violence" (which is where cynical minds tend to go) but the ability to do things with consequence. Your list of examples go well beyond gunshots, but inspire countless possible actions the PCs can take.

Growing from this concept are the other concepts you list: Information, Reward, and, most importantly, CHOICES. Action without those three elements will quickly become dull.


This is where sketched details of environment -- mentioned in the first post -- do matter. The Traveller rules encourage specific, unique environments. And these help the Referee offer the Player Characters choices. Do they need to bring oxygen with them when they leave their ship? This will affect how long they can be gone for, whether they want to get into a gunfight or avoid it, and so on.

Environment in and of itself isn't particularly compelling to players if it has no impact on their actions, information, rewards, and choices, and if they can have no impact on the environment. ("There's a damn? We blow up the damn.")

It is possible for the Referee to read out a long details description of "environment" that they Players, via their PCs, cannot actually interact with. This can be a stress point between players and Referees, when a Referee has created lots of background detail that he wants the Players to hear about, but offers no expectation or method for the Players, via their PCs, to grab hold of the information, interact with it, or do anything with it.

Example: Years ago at GenCon a Traveller Referee read to us us (I kid you not) a forty minute introduction of the politics of the Imperium and the current state of the Rebellion, naming all the big players in the nobility and so forth. We then started play. We were supposed to move from our ship and board another ship. We went to the second ship's airlock and... for 30 minutes tried to guess the method for opening the airlock. Which to the Referee's delight and amusement we could not sort out because. Judging by his smiles and smirks we should have been able to sort the matter out quickly.

Now, there's a lot that clearly went wrong in that session. (I left at the 90 minute mark.) But off the top: All the political stuff had very little bearing on the need to open an airlock. Clearly the preamble went on too long given the nature of the starting events. And finally, he offered us a ton of information about setting... but decided that we, playing space-faring travellers, should be stymied by an airlock.

This incident taught me a lot about about how not to ever run an RPG for anyone.

Now, to bring it back around to Rails vs. Freeform... I offered above the term "sketched environment." The fact is, if one spends too much time working up details about a planet's environment one might well find that all that work goes to waste.

I think it is best if the Referee has a a few key details (specific bits of environment he finds compelling, novel, and unique; ideas about how the culture works; some key NPCs) and lets the world grow as play progresses.

It is also important to remember that time between sessions is a great asset. As you build out details on the fly you can't possibly be figuring out all the ideas and implications you were making up. But you take some time to mull matters as they grew between sessions and you'll see opportunities you didn't see in the session that you'll be able to pop next session.

 

[LeperColony]

In my opinion, it's dangerous to make pronouncements about what players want. Even statements that seem universal, like "players want choices" actually are not.

There's an entire class of passive player who is happy to be along for the ride, and not only isn't interested in choices, but would actively prefer to make as few as necessary.

For me, understanding expectations about the kind of game people want is the first step. At the same time, I believe it is almost axiomatic that GMs run the kinds of games they would have most liked to play, and there may be a tension between those two elements.

For instance, there may be players who are new to the setting, or who perhaps are indifferent to the setting. But the GM may love the universe and want to explore it in detail.

Personally, I feel the more the players and the GM are in tune with the sort of game it should be, the better experience for everyone

 

[creativehum]

An excellent point.

What an RPG is can be any number of things to any number of people. Whenever I speak about Refereeing I am speaking about the kinds of sessions and games I like to play. I'll make sure to state that I further posts.

In this subforum we will ultimately be offering best practices for the kind of game we like to play or run. Trying to find consensus or trying to prove someone is wrong for wanting to run the game a certain way can only lead to comstant and useless bickering.

 

[Lycanorukke]

I would say that there is a range from the hard railroad and the infinite sandbox.

Hard Rails:
Linear, rigid and inflexible but simple to create and run for the GM. However PC's tend to dislike these and before long expect them to hit the accelerator and derail the plot train. I hate these - the PC's are not players, they are mannequins made to dance for the GM.

Concealed Rails:
In this case the GM makes an effort to 'hide' the rails. The plot is still very linear but instead of driving the PC's down a linear corridor they are driven through a series of rooms - the scope is still narrow but they can wander a bit in each room/plot point. Not quite as easy to run as 'Hard rails', but less likely for PC's to derail it. However by the same token the PC's may wander around so much they never find the door to the next 'room'. This is where the 'Three Clue Rule' comes in to keep them in roughly the right direction. This is roughly where RPG computer games sit - a linear plot but with 'side quests' and fluff to hide the purely A->B->C plot.

Checkpoints/Nodes:
My personal favourite, and used in MT. A much looser form of 'Concealed Rails'. The advance the plot the PC's need to go through 'Nodes' but how they get to the nodes is entirely up to them. And it is entirely possible for them to skip entire 'nodes' by cleverness or luck. More work required by the GM as each node has to link to other nodes in a coherent way. Again the 'Three Clue Rule' comes into effect, and if the players get distracted they could jump out of the boundaries your nodes cover. Essay on 'Node Based' play here.

Open World:
No limits for the PC's and a prematurely grey GM. Depending on how long their 'legs' are the PC's could go anywhere which means the things the GM has to cover increases expodentially. Unless the PC's have some sort of meta-goal they could easily get bored and simply drift from place to place. Also it is very hard to make detailed or memorable events as the GM can't detail anything too much as it has to be able to slot into anywhere. The game world becomes 'A mile wide but an inch deep'.


Of course bit can be mixed and matched - a sub plot may be 'concealed rails' placed inside a 'Node based game', and where the line is drawn between each 'stage' is very grey. But the extremes I would call no-go areas - Hard Rails annoy the PC's while Open world annoys the GM.

 

[rhialto]

I would say that there is a range from the hard railroad and the infinite sandbox.

Hard Rails
Concealed Rails:
Checkpoints/Nodes:
Open World:

Of course bit can be mixed and matched - a sub plot may be 'concealed rails' placed inside a 'Node based game', and where the line is drawn between each 'stage' is very grey. But the extremes I would call no-go areas - Hard Rails annoy the PC's while Open world annoys the GM.

Nice breakdown: I tend to run Checkpoints/Nodes with the few published adventures I use, and Open World most of the time. Since I wing things a lot I take notes as I run (a session log), so I can keep myself straight between sessions. This has saved me forgetting NPC names, statements of fact about the setting, clues, etc. But it's crucial when winging it, and heaven help me if I forget to take notes (which I sometimes do in the heat of the moment). And I've found that the "mile-wide, inch deep" disappears after a while, as the PCs settle into the "mile-deep" section of the setting they're interested in.

My primary tools for Open World/winging it are:

• Sketched Out Subsector or Two (four in the Sky Raiders trilogy)

• Random Tables (Patrons, Encounters, Rumors, Events, Tags)

• Copious use of "throw 2D6 to guide my imagination/decision-making in-game"

• My session log notebook

I use the 2D6 throw for everything from "Will Eneri suspect an ambush when he returns?" to "How bad was the misjump", using the Reaction Table as a benchmark for bad/good. Rarely do I have detailed notes that state "Eneri will react this way in this situation, or that way in that situation."

 

[creativehum]

Nice breakdown: I tend to run Checkpoints/Nodes with the few published adventures I use, and Open World most of the time. Since I wing things a lot I take notes as I run (a session log), so I can keep myself straight between sessions. This has saved me forgetting NPC names, statements of fact about the setting, clues, etc. But it's crucial when winging it, and heaven help me if I forget to take notes (which I sometimes do in the heat of the moment). And I've found that the "mile-wide, inch deep" disappears after a while, as the PCs settle into the "mile-deep" section of the setting they're interested in.

My primary tools for Open World/winging it are:

• Sketched Out Subsector or Two (four in the Sky Raiders trilogy)

• Random Tables (Patrons, Encounters, Rumors, Events, Tags)

• Copious use of "throw 2D6 to guide my imagination/decision-making in-game"

• My session log notebook

I use the 2D6 throw for everything from "Will Eneri suspect an ambush when he returns?" to "How bad was the misjump", using the Reaction Table as a benchmark for bad/good. Rarely do I have detailed notes that state "Eneri will react this way in this situation, or that way in that situation."

Like rhialto, I think Lycanorukke's breakdown is really solid. Like rhialto, I run Open World. His points sum up how I've found things work in play.

It's important to keep in mind that I (and rhialto) limit the number of subsectors of play. That is, we might have larger governments "offscreen"/off the subsector map, but we're not worrying about all that. We're assuming that 40-80 worlds of adventure is enough to keep a group of players entertained for a while.

Some people might think this requires some sort of railroading or forcing the players to not cross boundaries. All I can say is, the most interesting things that the Players know about the setting are right there in that subsector, then they'll be focused on that subsector.

This, by the way, where the issues of "how to play/how to Referee" reveal themselves to be a set of interlinked choices. It is also why I focus on the earlier Classic Traveller materials. Books 1, 2, and 3 are focused on and geared toward efficient and useful play structure that I enjoy and works well.

Thus, the 1977 edition of Book 3 points out (correctly) "one or two sub-sectors should be quite enough for years of adventure (each sub-sector has, on the average, 40 worlds)."

Further, Books 1, 2, and 3 offer a starship technology and list of ships that limit the legs of the PCs. At the start they'll have ships capable of jumping one or two parsecs at a time, and can buy tickets on ships that can make a jump of three parsecs. Of course, the earlier editions of the game (especially the 1977 rules, but even the 1981 rules) assume a much less civilized/starship travel is like 20th century air travel feel than that found in the later editions of Basic Traveller rules. Thus, even if a liner is capable of Jump-3, there is no guarantee a liner actually travels between two particular worlds. Simply getting from one world to another can be an adventure in and of itself depending on how the Referee establishes the setting and which rules he is using.

If one adds in random encounters, patrons, rumors that are worth pursuing on the worlds around them, interesting NPCs, and routes to their own goals all contained within a subsector or two then there will be no need or desire to rush off. The adventures they seek will be right at hand.

40 worlds in a single subsector is still a lot of setting. But it certainly limits the kind of cold-stop fear facing a Referee if he thinks he is responsible for a whole sector of content (640 worlds!) or setting of play that is even larger. Being loose, improvisatory, with Open World play seems much more reasonable with the structure of play found in a subsector or two.

As always, these are my preferences, my expectations of play, all built from my preferred rules set. Others will, without doubt, have other expectations and other needs based on the rules they use.

 

[Lycanorukke]

Reading on Creativehum's and rhialto's methods, prehaps break 'open world' into 'Big' and 'Little' catagories.

Hard Rails
Concealed Rails
Checkpoints/Nodes
Little Open World
Big Open World

Little Open World: And open world sandbox but limited to a contained region - an island, a city, a planet. Within the boundaries they can do as they wish, but they can't easily exceed those boundaries - either due to lacking the physical means to jump outside the box, or have PC obligations to that tie them to region. As the PC's adventure, the box has the potential to expand. With the core already created, new regions can be attached to the original box as required.

What would be the advantages/disadvantages of Little Open world?

 

[rhialto]

Reading on Creativehum's and rhialto's methods, prehaps break 'open world' into 'Big' and 'Little' catagories.

Hard Rails
Concealed Rails
Checkpoints/Nodes
Little Open World
Big Open World

Little Open World: And open world sandbox but limited to a contained region - an island, a city, a planet. Within the boundaries they can do as they wish, but they can't easily exceed those boundaries - either due to lacking the physical means to jump outside the box, or have PC obligations to that tie them to region. As the PC's adventure, the box has the potential to expand. With the core already created, new regions can be attached to the original box as required.

What would be the advantages/disadvantages of Little Open world?

Again, I like the division, and plan to incorporate ideas from Beyond the Wall's Further Afield: that of the shared sandbox, wherein my players will choose from a large list of locations/factions/tags and assign them to the subsector maps (names only, no UWPs). I will secretly roll to see if what they think is true (e.g., a Psionic cult rules Etarr) is really true. This way they have some background knowledge, which may or may not be true.

So I see a distinct advantage in the LOW, and the only disadvantage I can see off the top of my head is maintaining consistency once the OW opens up to BOW.

 

[ffilz]

Reading on Creativehum's and rhialto's methods, prehaps break 'open world' into 'Big' and 'Little' catagories.

Hard Rails
Concealed Rails
Checkpoints/Nodes
Little Open World
Big Open World

Little Open World: And open world sandbox but limited to a contained region - an island, a city, a planet. Within the boundaries they can do as they wish, but they can't easily exceed those boundaries - either due to lacking the physical means to jump outside the box, or have PC obligations to that tie them to region. As the PC's adventure, the box has the potential to expand. With the core already created, new regions can be attached to the original box as required.

What would be the advantages/disadvantages of Little Open world?

Hmm, I'm not sure that quite captures it. Sure, those of us who follow the wisdom of Christopher (Kubasikers???? sort of joking, sort of not, Christopher has been so effective at describing a way of play that I'm always referring to him) have set up smallish settings. But if the players look at the edge of the map and say "what's there?" I can still expand it, and given the constraints of Jump-1, Jump-2 or MAYBE Jump-3, I actually at most have to check what's in 10-20 hexes, or likely 5-10 worlds. That's not too bad. And with a variety of tools to spur inspiration on the spot, it's very manageable. Not much worse than if the players ignore the rumors I hand out and jump to a nearby world I hadn't given much thought to. With a good improv toolbox, a GM can run open world easily.

I'm not actually sure we need a distinction between small and large open world. What is key to all RPG play is limitations. NO RPG is totally open, every RPG has limits and boundaries. What we need to do is understand them, and then create a setting of play that places limits and boundaries in a manageable way. The size of that setting will depend on the interests and capabilities of the GM in what sorts of things they want the game to be about.

Frank

 

[baktegon]

Matarishan subsector - Ley Sector

I'm running our campaign in a Node based Small Open World. Even an entire subsector would be a lot! We're in just a cluster of 13 planets J1 apart.

Having a basic idea for each world works for me, it gives me an idea of what kind of action the players can get into on each world (or in the space between them).

A few backwaters, an A class starport, some waterworlds, some heavy, some toxic atmo, and a few shirtsleeves. We've got a lot of ground to cover.

 

[flykiller]

And with a variety of tools to spur inspiration on the spot

what tools do you use?

 

[ffilz]

what tools do you use?

The UWP, encounter tables, world tags from Stars Without Number for starters, I've got more listed in My Classic Traveller Inspiration Binder.

Oh, and also my Traveller Reading List

 

[Ulsyus]

Checkpoints/Nodes:
My personal favourite, and used in MT. A much looser form of 'Concealed Rails'. The advance the plot the PC's need to go through 'Nodes' but how they get to the nodes is entirely up to them. And it is entirely possible for them to skip entire 'nodes' by cleverness or luck. More work required by the GM as each node has to link to other nodes in a coherent way. Again the 'Three Clue Rule' comes into effect, and if the players get distracted they could jump out of the boundaries your nodes cover. Essay on 'Node Based' play here.
...
Of course bit can be mixed and matched - a sub plot may be 'concealed rails' placed inside a 'Node based game', and where the line is drawn between each 'stage' is very grey. But the extremes I would call no-go areas - Hard Rails annoy the PC's while Open world annoys the GM.

I've used a combination of nodes and the WW Storytelling Adventure System.

Unless you've let the characters just choose what they're going to do and you're free-forming it, each scenario has a purpose or outcome to achieve. This doesn't have to mean the players have to run on rails, their characters herded along by ducks with machineguns, but they have a reason for doing things.

I find having a bit of structure handy and it can keep things easier while refereeing, as I don't have to freeform as much if I've got half of the adventure mapped out and PCs, maps, locations and ships prepared.

what tools do you use?

See above.