M-Space Campaign

This coming Wednesday, I'm continuing my M-Space colonial campaign by using the above module with some changes to the adventure here and there. The main focus isn't going to be on the alien, though it will play a large part in harrying the players. The focus will be on the ship itself and a crew member cryogenically asleep in there.

While my game has been more of a episodic sandbox of exploring a hostile planet with a lethal atmosphere, there has been a sort of metaplot that the players have found. Some context. The players were on an ark leaving a dying Earth for a new planet through a wormhole. The plan was to set them there, set up shop, then bring resources back to Earth to help everyone survive. However, the ark stayed in the wormhole for 86 years before letting the players out, then closing forever, leaving them stranded away from a now dead Earth. As the players explored the planet, they found a crashed human ship called the FEI Icarus, despite the fact that the PCs were the first to make planetfall. Whats more, is that the spaceship has a more advanced power plant and an unusual engine in it that is more advanced than anything the player's or their colonial initiative has. 

So the question is, who are these humans and where did they come from?

In the next session, the players are going to the second planet of the star system to investigate an unusual radio signal. What it'll end up being is the sister ship of the Icarus, the FEI Iapyx. Inside will be the discovery of a lifetime for them. Evil hydrocarbon aliens, a rogue AI protecting the Iapyx, and the only living crewmember of the Iapyx, trapped in cryostasis.

The discoveries the players make will be this:

• Earth and humanity still live on! Though in a much different state than they left it.
• The Iapyx and Icarus were ships testing an Alcubierre warp drive that sort of worked, but left the Icarus marooned on the planet the players were on, while the Iapyx simply got lost.
• The warp drive and the fusion power plant can be retrofitted by the player's engineering after some time.
• The players are on the other side of the galaxy.

This will advance the metaplot by a great deal, and it will give the players a chance to upgrade their spaceship to take them beyond the confines of the stellar system. Just gotta do some more stuff for the module Wednesday and I should be a-ok. I plan on having the crewmember in stasis for a time due to health reasons, before revealing more about the state of Earth. But in the distant future, I do plan on having the colonies encounter Earthlings. And it won't be pretty.

The Great Kitbashed Campaign

From the game Offworld Trading Company

The current game I'm running is an M-Space/Mythras game, where the players are colonists, explorers, and security for the last of humanity aboard a giant ark ship. It's been a fun game with a new system for all of us. We're still getting used to how Mythras does things and keeping track of things like special effects, hit location, luck points, and action points. But I feel it's made a much more meaning game with how it does combat. And I really enjoy the more skill based system as opposed to class and levels.

One of the things I like is the way they do spaceships. Everything is bought in modules and most of the actual cosmetic design is left up to the GM and players. I personally made the ships similar to Traveller with a bit of tweaking and math here and there, but kept it lower tech. Like something from Orbital 2100. No fusion drives, no FTL, no artificial gravity. It means travelling to the different planets in the new star system can take a little longer in game, but it gives the players some time for their characters to do their own things. One is building battle droids and researching a fusion drive they found. Another is focused on making their weapons better. And now that their colony is close to up and running, there can be more human interaction for them (since near everyone is in cryo stasis).

The game is a huge kit bash of sci fi rules systems (and one fantasy!). The base is M-Space and Mythras, with more and more from Mythras coming into play as we learn the rules more. For the creation of solar systems and planets, I ended up using Mindjammer and Traveller, with an extended table for creating gas dwarfs, ice giants, and gas giants. Much of that comes from Freelance Traveller's article about gas giants, because so much has changed since Book 6: Scouts was published. Mindjammer has some extended stats for planets, like temperature, gravity, and radius that I honestly like for flavor and world-building.

With the colony coming close to running, I've turned to the OSR for this. Stars Without Number has a supplement called Suns of Gold, which details a cool systems for running colonial holdings. In addition, there is Adventurer, Conqueror, King, which has a very robust set of rules for domain holdings, population growth, armies, and taxes. I've done a bit of massaging between the two and have a system that does the best of both systems. It's a bit simpler than ACKS, but unlike SoG, it has more of the land holdings and resource harvesting to get more raw materials for the colony. The colony starts with 5000 people, and the goal is to hit 100,000 citizens so that it can become self-sustaining. This is more of a side game, played in-between sessions throughout the week. And really, only for those interested in that style of game.

We are very close to beginning that, and I think one of the best things I like about the colonial game is that the players can see real, tangible results in a world with little law and order set up. And I think that's why they've really enjoyed the game so far. It's been a real pleasure.

A Solo Superhero Sandbox Scenario?

Switching gears from constant sci-fi and M-Space stuff, lately I've been in the mood for superhero gaming. I blame binge watching Flash season 3 and My Hero Academia with the lady friend. But I don't really want to cancel my M-Space game. So I've decided to try my hand at solo gaming again and do a superhero solo game.

Right now, I'm waffling between using ICONS, a simple hero game reminiscent of FATE done by the Mutants and Masterminds guy, and Guardians, an OSR clone done more in the style of super heroes rather than fantasy. I've played ICONS and liked it, but I also like trying new things and am looking at Guardians. I am looking to keep it simple for ease of solo play, so anything in that style can fit.

I'm going to be taking my notes from a superhero campaign I ran a couple of years ago called Magic City Defenders. In it, I had the players as Miami's first premiere superhero group. There's a map of the different sections of Miami (Overtown, Brickell, Wynwood, etc) that I had planned to use as a sort of patrolling 'hexcrawl'. Basically, the players would patrol a different borough and I would roll a random crime encounter table. The difference between this and fantasy games though is that something would always happen. It was just a matter of how important it was. More often then not, it would be simple stuff like muggings or car jacking, but every so often, there would be a bigger supervillain event that the players would have to contend with. The map of the neighborhoods is below for anyone interested

So with this, I plan on taking those notes and applying them to this superhero solo game. Luckily, ICONS has a fairly robust adventure generator that I can use, even if I use Guardians or some other game. In addition, I have a great catalog of villains from all kinds of systems, from HERO and M&M to ICONS and Savage Worlds. I think I'll have enough to go off of for a good solo campaign. I think I'll start with a premade adventure at first, to get my sea legs again with solo gaming. After that, I'll do more of my own adventuring.

My biggest enemy is time, or lack thereof. With summer here and working at a restaurant next to a movie theater, there is no slow season. People flock to our kitchen while on their way to the next summer blockbuster. And this week is the premier of Spider Man so... it will be a difficult time to say the least. That's partially why my Mythras solo adventure write had been put on hold (the other being bed bugs). I'll have to finish that sooner rather than later.

I think I'll decide on which RPG to use by tonight, though I'm always down to try new games out there. I'm leaning towards ICONS since I've played it before, but Guardians looks like a lot of fun. And I am more familiar with d20 systems. Also I'll post my hero at some point, before I get to the adventure.

Adventures on Chicken Island (First Draft)

Currently, I'm running a sci fi game using M-Space, a version of Mythras set as a sci fi game akin to Traveller. You can see a lot of Traveller/CE DNA in the game, so I'm able to, with some conversion and elbow grease, add aspects of Traveller/CE into it. But that's not what this is about. This is about the map I made for my players of an island affectionately called Chicken Island by my players.

Because it looks like a chicken, I guess.

This is the rough draft coloring of Chicken Island, one anyone can use for their sci fi or fantasy game. The hexes are 10 km but can easily be converted to 6 mi for those playing OSR games like ACKS. I drew the original by hand and scanned it with my crappy HP 2-in-1. After running it through Inkscape and then GIMP to make the lines smooth and bold, as well as the back ground transparent, I overlay the hex map on it and began coloring. It was a quick job sadly since I didn't have a lot of time to really get it done. But so far, I am happy with the way it looks. My players are currently adventuring on it, now that they have their first planetary colony making its foundation. I think I may have to do a bit of an explanation of the setting and maybe an adventure recap for them. I'd love to do some solo gaming with this, but for whatever reason, I can't seem to keep my focus on it for more than 20 minutes at a time.

I have a lot of bread to make for the restaurant party on the 4th, so that's it for tonight. I may have to post pictures of the hot dog buns at another time. Below is the larger scale map for anyone that wants to look at it.

To Vesper Skies: The Setting

As I work more on the sci fi game I eventually will run, I've been building up the setting and how it will work.

The Basics

So the game will start on a dying Earth. Humanity made it to the stars, but were only able to extensively colonize Luna and the L4 and 5 points of orbit, with only outposts on Mars. Digital consciousness uploading has become a thing and humans are slowly making the jump to transhumanity. Things were looking great for the United Nations of Earth. Until humanity broke the moon. A terrible mining incident on Luna went horribly wrong and it shattered the moon. The falling rocks devastated the Earth and destroyed all of the lunar colonies. Now the Earth is covered in a permanent cloud of moon dust that blocks the sun. The world is cold, the ocean has swallowed most of the large cities, and humanity is dying. A global last ditch effort using all of their remaining resources has been put into a wormhole generator and ark ship that will get humanity to a habitable planet found in the New Earth Sky Survey on the other side of the galaxy. This is a one way trip for the millions of humans uploaded to the ark. Your mission is to make it to the Cape Atlanta Space Center, launch to the Tevat in the asteroid belt, traverse the wormhole, and colonize onto NESS 89-03, ensuring the future of humanity.

The Trip

The players will spend a couple of sessions (no more than four) getting to the new planet. They'll have to deal with those that would sabotage the mission or usurp it for their own agenda. Once they make it to the planet NESS 89-03 from the wormhole, they'll be focused on that planet and possibly the other celestial bodies in their newly claimed system. There is no FTL drive (yet) nor aliens (yet), but there are plenty of ruins of such in the area for the players to explore while they continue to grow their colony. Eventually, there will be discoveries that will lead to the invention of the warp drive and open up the entire sector to the players.

The New Earth Sky Survey & the Tevat

This ship was the result of the great superpowers of Earth uniting their resources and scientists to ensure that humanity will live on once the Earth finally succumbs to its unending Ice Age. This initiative was met with resistance, as there were many people that objected to shipping the last of Earth's resources to an unknown system and abandoning Earth and the billions of people suffering on the planet. A minority of politicians and scientists felt the Earth could still be saved, but support for the Tevat ultimately prevailed.

The Tevat is several hundreds of meters long. It has some of the last remaining resources available on it and hundreds of millions of people uploaded onto the memory archives of the ship. These people were uploaded for a variety of reasons, all depending on the country they came from. Some had skills that would be useful out in the unknown. Others had medical reasons (universal donor). And some were simply picked via a lottery. It has starship fabrication facilities and a colonization protocol to send compilers and pre-fabricated shuttle-houses that will be the starting homes for the first to land on NESS 89-03. The Tevat also has a great deal of weaponry to protect it and the colony from any intelligence that would attack it. The ship is run by Noah, the braked AI that controls all of the systems. Its mission is to protect humanity and ensure that the colonies survive and thrive on the new world.

NESS 89-03 and its Neighbors 

This is the third planet in the 89th system analyzed by the New Earth Sky Survey. This is where scientists have found conclusive evidence of plant life and an atmosphere that may be conductive to human colonization. The planet hasn't been given a proper name, but rather one reminiscent of the Kepler and TrES surveys. I'm letting the players name the planet that they will be colonizing on. The planet is similar to Earth to be familiar to the players, but just different enough to feel alien and foreign to them. Days are a little short, and the year is only 81 days. The atmosphere is breathable chemically, but fungal spores permeate the air like a gray-green fog. These are poisonous and will make life difficult for the colonists. There is a great variety of fauna and flora for the players to encounter, and for the most part, it's Earth analogous.

What's interesting are two main anomalies. The first are several ruined sites that are distinctly Earth like. There are humans on this planet somehow, and what's more, they are a bit more technologically advanced than the players. This will be the main overarching mystery as the players expand and explore.

The second will come a bit later, as the players find out that they are not alone on this world. There are native insectoid creatures that call the planet their home. They are in their Stone Age and capable of tool usage and tribal government structures. Encountering a technologically inferior species will have some interesting adventures and scenarios for the players to contend with.

There are other planets for the players to explore in their spaceship (hell yeah, level 1 spaceship). The two preceding orbits have a hot jovian gas giant closest to the star, followed by a hot, barren rocky world. After NESS 89-03 lies a large asteroid belt with two dwarf planets, two cold jovians, one cold neptunian, and a small ice ball planet at the edge of the system. Despite not having habitable life (or at least, life as we know it), there will be plenty of adventures and anomalies for the players to explore and deal with, especially if they wish to expand their reach to these planets. Alien ruins, hostile exoplanets, irradiated moons... That's the interesting and challenging thing about this campaign, is that the players can go to any planet and attempt to colonize it or mine it for resources.

The Sector

Once FTL is discovered by the players' efforts, they will be able to traverse the sector and explore beyond their simple world. Here is where the discovery of aliens will appear, with the players suddenly thrust into the conflicts, grudges, and history of several alien species. For a while, I want to play up the Fermi Paradox and make it seem like there were aliens, but they all died. So meeting a fellow spacefaring sophont will be a BIG deal to the players and ultimately shape the future of their colony.

Discovering FTL will also reveal something terrible about the universe; the Great Filter exists. Unbeknownst to humanity and all of the alien species in this sector, the galaxy is owned by an advanced, borderline Type III extra terrestrial intelligence. These ETIs use the Milky Way to exploit the resources (stars, black holes, planets, people) that keep their civilization running. No one has ever seen an ETI or even know of their homeworld, but we see signs of them in the galaxy via their megastructures. Dyson spheres, Matrioshka brains, stellar engines, Penrose extractors... these are scattered about the galaxy.

While the ETI have no interest in meeting the players or other aliens, they do want to stay the apex civilization and protect their megastructures from the locals. So seeded across the galaxy are highly advanced self replicating nanomachines. These are programmed to attack any ship capable of FTL travel, locate the homeworld, and assimilate the civilization before they can become too powerful. However, millions of years of being out in the galaxy have caused the nanomachines to malfunction somewhat. While they still attack FTL ships, they do so blindly, without hunting down the homeworld. The aliens call it the Gray Beast, since it is a large gray goo in space. They are still a dangerous encounter to the players, so players will have to be careful.

At some point, as the years go by, I do plan on advancing the technology in their setting. Interstellar ansibles, wormhole travel, megastructures... all things the players can have access to eventually.

Adventures and Mysteries

- On the day of the launch, the facilities are under attack by a mob of people being left behind. This is a distraction for the Earth Reclamation Front, a terrorist organization against the New Earth Initiative and abandoning humanity to its doom. They wish to kill the NEI operatives and spread the resources from the Tevat to the people.

- Surveying NESS 89-03 has shown that there are some starship remnants on the planet. When those are explored, it's revealed that these are from Earth and are considerably advanced. What technologies can they get from this and more importantly, how did Earthlings come here before the Tevat?

- The players awake from their hibernation after exiting the wormhole, only to find that a previously planned insurrection is underway to take over the colony and unite it under a faction. Noah the AI is actively trying to stop them, but because of his Third Law protocols, he cannot harm them. Will the players stop them, or join them?
- After discovering FTL, the players have their first encounter with the Gray Beast. It will take some investigating to realize that it only appears occasionally when one travels at superluminal speeds. Will the players find their weakness?

Lunar Cycles and Tides

The moon and the tides have helped to shape human civilization for millenia. From maritime activities to the simple wonder of the bright celestial body in the night sky, we owe a lot to these natural phenomena. So, I want to write up some simple ideas for using them in a campaign. Let's begin with the moon. Mind you, this only really works if you have one moon, but I imagine you can use the concepts presented here for multiple moons (or ditch them entirely).

Moon Cycles

The moon of Earth is a tidally locked satellite that orbits our planet every 27.8 days. We'll simplify this to just 28 days because I hate decimals. Because it is tidally locked, we always see the same face of the moon most nights. For game terms, we'll have only the important four lunar cycles; new moon, first quarter, full moon, last quarter. Every seven days you'll have a different section of the lunar cycle in the night sky and they will loop back into each other endlessly every 28 days. You'll also notice the in-between sections for crescent and gibbous moons. An easy way to remember gibbous is that it's inverted, like a black crescent moon. When the moon is becoming full, then it is waxing, and when it is becoming new, it is waning.

Source: Wikipedia

Tides

As we now know, the tides are controlled by the moon. Depending on the location of the moon will decide whether we have high or low tide. In game terms, the tides come in and out twice a day. So you'll have two high tides and two low tides. We can have these happen at 6 hour intervals of your choosing. For a bit more realistic tides, you can have the next day's tide times happen about 40 minutes later than the previous day's, but it's not necessary. 

When the tide is coming in, we call that the flow tide. When it reaches it's maximum, that is high tide. You'll see a lot of flooded beaches during this. When the water begins to recede, that is the ebbing tide. When this reaches its lowest point, that is low tide. You will see a lot more of the sand and ocean floor revealed to you. When the tides cease to move, usually at the peak of high and low tide, or when the flow and ebb has stopped, that is slack tide. The different between low and high tide can be one of a couple of feet in depth and several feet in distance from the coast to the ocean.

Tides in the UK on the same day

But that's not all. The phase of the moon can make tides weaker or stronger than normal. The stronger tide is called the spring tide and the weaker tide is called the neap tide. The diagram below shows when this happens. Like the lunar phases, it happens every seven days and alternates between spring tide and neap tide. Generally, it'll lag a little behind the phase of the moon by one or two days. For this exercise, we'll say one day. 

Now What?

So now that we know all this, how do we use this? The tides and their link to the lunar phases have been known as far back as ancient Greece. And they have had a great impact on coastal civilizations for centuries. So some ideas for applying it to game terms.

• Great for nautical games that highly depend on the wind and tides to leave and enter bays.
• Low tide can uncover a secret burial area by the coast.
• High tide hides a secret cavern that leads to treasure. When it's low tide, you can enter it, but traversing it is difficult. High tide, you can easily swim to the different chambers, but it'll be hard to bring stuff out. Not to mention what creatures the tide brings in.
• Low tide reveals a land bridge that leads to a set of ruins, or even an island city that is accessible by bridges.
• High tide can empower water and healing magic, while low tide might stymie it, or instead it empowers earth magic.
• Divination using the tides and what they reveal can be used by scryers and seers.
• Different lunar phases can illuminate the night sky, if only up to dim.
• The different phases can empower different types of magic. Full moon could empower healing and holy magic while the new moon powers summoning and divination magic.
• Lycanthropy is the obvious pointer. You can even say that a ritual during the new moon can help to cure it. Or a ritual under the full moon can make the shift controllable.
• Different deities and protectors of the tides and phases can exist and praying to them at that time can elicit boons.
• Different phases of the moon shining on a dungeon can open different portals that lead to other areas.
• Connections between our world and the spirit world are strongest under a full moon, while the new moon brings in demons and monsters into our world.
• Full moons seem to bring out the worst in people as well as animals. Monsters and creatures become more wild and some people can suffer from lunacy.
• A blue moon (the rare fourth moon in a season) can be the perfect time for a terrible ritual to summon demonic creatures or gather great power. You could even get a wish granted.
• Or the moon could hide a terrible moon presence (spoilers for Bloodborne).

Grand Be during low tide at St. Malo, France

These are what I could come up with. I'd love to see what other ideas people have for using the tides and the lunar phases in their games. Truthfully, before I became a chef, I was into meteorology and I've always had a love of the cycles of nature. So admittedly this is a bit of a self indulgence of that for me, but hopefully this will be useful for those that run great nature campaigns. 

Slice of Life

Something I was musing on was different tones of adventures. Whenever we as GMs write up adventures, generally they are adversarial. Something bad happens and the players react to it. In many circles, we like to increase the badness with more adult oriented and realistic issues (genocide, murder, rape, etc.). There are varying degrees on this based on player comfort and such, but generally, increasing the impact of the antagonists and their crimes and plots are common to us GMs. A lot of it is because we want to make memorable villains and plots

I wonder though, has anyone tried doing a scenario without an antagonist? I suppose I mean that the players run through an experience rather than a plot?

Once example of this I did was back a couple of years ago. The players held a festival honoring their fallen comrade who was a great patron to the kingdom they owned. The festival lasted the entire game session and it was made up of events, roleplaying, carnival games, and ended with the cremation of the character. There were no antagonists or bad guys, save for some friendly competition in the archery contest. But ultimately the players had a great deal of fun with a calmer, more slice of life adventure. Plus, it really cemented their place in the game world since the festival was in the dead PC's honor.

I'd like to do more adventures like this, especially after doing a heavy, dark adventure. What are some examples of these slice of life games that you found were great? How did they work out, and what are some good ideas on running more?

Sandboxes and Quagmires

I generally don't like doing advice blogs since there's a million opinions, but I can't quite get this topic outta my head. So here we go.

Since 2010, when I cracked open Paizo's Adventure Path Kingmaker, I have been enamored with the sandbox game (and hexcrawls in general). The idea of running a more player-driven game where the PCs choose where to go and what to do is really appealing. There is something nice about seeing your players getting invested in the game and in many ways, doing the GM work for you. And as a player, having that total freedom is pretty awesome. It's something you can't get from video games, even open world ones like The Witcher 3 or Skyrim.

Sandbox gaming is very common in the OSR community and for good reason. That freedom is awesome, but also it's great for the open table style of gaming, which is great for us adults that simply may not have the schedule to do a consistent campaign. Among the community, sandbox gaming is seen as the way best way to game and believe me, there are many grognards that would certainly defend that.

Unfortunately, sandboxes have their pitfalls, especially to those new to them. And in the last six years, I've experienced them all.

Pitfalls of Sandbox Gaming

In a sandbox, especially the more West Marches style, there is very little in the way of structure or concrete goals for players coming in. Aside from generally "rob the tomb, fight monsters, get rich". Nothing wrong with that, but for players not used to this style of gaming, the freedom of choice can get overwhelming and cause option paralysis. The game suddenly becomes one of "what do we do today guys?" and can grind to a halt. I have run sandboxes with new players that have bogged down because players really didn't know what to do.

There are more ways that a sandbox can slow down. A common factor I see with both new and experienced sandboxers is that with player choice, you have players that want to do their own thing. Generally, my experience is that you'll have two players that want to do different things, with other players neutral on what adventure they want to do. This happens because while there is the freedom of choosing your adventures in a sandbox, the team still has to agree on what they want to do. A gaming group follows general social dynamics, so you'll have one dominant player that will try and steer the group in a direction while another dominant player will want to do a different direction. And the other players generally don't care as long as they have fun, so no one really takes sides and it becomes an argument over what we should do that night. When running a sandbox, it is important for the players to have some sort of way to decide where they go next so that everyone gets a turn. Voting, choosing, picking straws... whatever works. But even with this, you will still have a person that is left choosing last, and depending on the adventure, they could have to wait weeks or even months. As a GM, you'll really have to step in and adjudicate things when this happens, or else game night could be ruined.

A common fix to both of these problems of inaction and arguing is to "have a guy with a gun kick down the door and attack". That is, throw some interjecting problem at them that they have to deal with right now. That does have its issues in a sandbox game.

With sandbox gaming, the style really emphasizes player agency and is seen as the opposite to adventure paths and railroading. However, most players confuse what player agency really means. Player agency is the player's ability to have a meaningful choice in what to do. If a player wants to do something, they have the freedom to attempt to do it. However, many players misunderstand this term and believe it means they have control over the fate and narrative direction of their character. In addition, players get rather attached to their characters the longer they play them. So, when they have to deal with a negative consequence to an action their PC did, or an interjecting problem out of nowhere, things once again grind to a halt as the player(s) get upset about it. This gets more exacerbated with games like Dungeon World, where narrative control is shared by the DM and the players. You'll have people breaking out the accusations of railroading and things bog down.

I think the most common issues I've seen is that with player option, you will have players that will do things that the team doesn't like. Maybe the character antagonizes an NPC that the other PCs are interested in bartering with, or does something that genuinely offends a player in the room. Eventually, a player or more will get disruptive and start becoming an obstacle to the team as a whole. Sometimes, all of the players get in the way of each other. This is because players are coming in and wanting to portray, experience, roleplay, and do things for their characters in a vacuum and eventually, this will conflict with the other players doing the same thing. And again that "player agency" term will rear its ugly head and players will get mad that the other is trying to stymie their game. And boy will things muck up

The Quagmire

Muck up is a good description for what I'm describing. If a railroad campaign is the eventual extreme of the adventure path style of gaming, then I would say that the extreme to a sandbox is the quagmire. A quicksand like pit that bogs everyone and everything down until you cannot escape.

I may have an unhealthy obsession with Pokemon

The issue I see is that the sandbox is player driven, but people take that to the extreme. In the case of the players, they see it as them taking some form of metagame control over the fate and story of their characters. Being given too much freedom can be detrimental to the game, especially when that choice isn't tempered by the feelings and thoughts of your fellow players. It's very easy to do things that sabotage other players and claim it was in the name of roleplaying and staying in character. That freedom will also bite you in the ass when everyone wants to do something different. Basically, everyone is out to make their own awesome sand castle, but there isn't enough sand for everyone's castle. So now people are kicking over sand castles to make theirs bigger and bigger.

For the GM, I notice that sometimes, you get lax in adjudicating and instead remain a neutral force. I find that this happens because of the player driven part of sandboxes. Mentally, I feel that because the players drive the action, the GM sits back and lets them deal with the big issues while you just throw NPCs and monsters at them. It's really for this to happen since being a GM can be a lot of work, so having players doing the heavy lifting for you is really nice. I know I have done this on many an occasion. Also, especially for new GMs in the sandbox, you sometimes don't want to come down with the GM hammer for fear of being a railroading judge. 

After dealing with these, sometimes you just want to give up and run simpler modules. I'll admit, after seeing some hexcrawls implode, I kind of crave the simplicity of running an adventure path or module. But we don't have to give up and throw out the baby with the bathwater. So what can we do for this?

These are my non-negotiables for running a sandbox. This goes for players and GMs.

1. Gaming isn't a story, or a game, or a competition. Gaming and game nights are social activities done between friends and peers to have fun. Ultimately, we as players and GMs need to remember that. This is a social group and the things we do as player characters are not done in a vacuum. So we have to remember to keep our peer's feelings in our minds when we make decisions, because that is more important than emulating a genre trope or simulating reality. We can't just do whatever we want, get mad when someone gets offended, and hold our breath until we get our way. And at the same time, we can't get offended with everything and deal with everyone issue with some kind of righteous indignation. When an issue arises in game, we have to chill out and talk it over. Cooler heads prevail and it's easy for things to get heated and leave bad feelings. If you can't talk things out reasonably and compromise like a fucking adult, then you don't have any business gaming. Period.

2. Talk with the players before the campaign even starts and let them know that this is a player driven game where you can make whatever choice you want. But, and this is important, impress the idea that this is a living, breathing world and that with this freedom of choice comes the burden of responsibility for them. All actions and inactions have consequences, positive or negative. And sometimes, things bigger than them will happen and they will have to react accordingly. Impress this to them over and over again if you have to. 

3. Sandboxes need to have some sort of structure and goal. By doing this, it helps to keep your players focused on something while they go after their own goals on the side. It also gives something for players to fall back on when they don't really know what to do. 

4. Having bonds between PCs is great. Many times in sandbox games, I see the same ragtag group of scoundrels and rogues out for number 1. While OSR games do focus on what the players do rather what they have done, there is something to be said about having preexisting backgrounds with each other. I find that more often than not, it helps the group mesh better and many of the issues of sandcastle kicking I mentioned above don't happen as much. Also, with backgrounds, you have some delicious hooks you can use.

5. GMs, don't get lazy. I think sandboxes need more GM adjudication more than any other style of gaming. It's really easy to sit back and let the players and the dice do your job. But, you have to be active in squashing anything that can bog down the game or more dangerously, break up the gaming group. You are the leader and probably have the most important job in the social group. Be active, assertive, and fair.

Doing these can help to prevent your game from becoming a quagmire and help make your sandboxes memorable and fun. It has certainly worked for me.