Issue 21

Ive had twenty issues so far in the Serenity/FireflyDeadlands Reloaded Verse game and Im going to discuss sandbox versus linear adventure game and how each is different to me. Which I run will simply depend on the choices of the players.

sandbox

One definition of a sandbox game that Ive heard is that anything is possible. But what does that mean? Well, the players have to decide whats important to them. They pursue those goals, while personally throwing in some initial complications for their PCs. The GM supports that by providing hooks and short adventures to further those goals plus adding additional complications from what the players want to explore. Its very much a playerdriven, rather than DMdriven, campaign. For example, suppose the group wants to run a highenergy, high combat smuggling game, where they have to deal with shady characters, deals going bad, avoiding any Alliance entanglements and coming out either on top, with lots of money, or all dead, betrayed in some fashion. Then each of the players outline some of their personal goals to the GM. Xun wants to find out what happened to him in Serenity Valley and possibly remove or control the manitou that is inhabiting him. General Zook wants to be back in a decent command or bring down the fools who treated him badly. Ramsey wants revenge against the defeat, anything to hurt the Alliance (without impacting his brother negatively) would be preferable. So hed have to dance a fine line between having his brother hurt and bringing the corrupt Alliance down. Taras wants to prove his brother wrong and become a famous (or infamous) mercenary. Caesar wants to make the killer deal of the century, then retire to Patagonia with every merchant in the Verse afraid of his name. Prospero just wants to learn more about being a huckster. The GM adds some complications of his own, with other NPCs that will cause problems. Since they want to smuggle stuff, the first adventure starts en media res, with the PCs delivering some goods to the Core Worlds. Some complications that ensue could be rival smugglers, a pissed

issue 21
off customer, some Alliance hardnoses, that sort of thing. After the delivery is complete, with happy and unhappy NPCs wanting to deal further with the PCs, the players will have to plan their next move and the GM will be (hopefully) one step ahead at what they are looking to do. Personally, Id like to run a sandbox game. Thats what some of the previous issues were setting upvarious friends, contacts and enemies for the PCs to run into during play, locations they could go to and things they could see. Its challenging, trying to think up the stuff needed onthefly to move the plot along. And the players have to bring their Agame to the table and know what they want to go dogetting them to be proactive, though, can always be an issue. After being presented with the setting, and allowing for changes that they want to make to the setting for their enjoyment, I will want to know what sort of adventures they are interested in pursuing, within the confines of the source material.

Linear

The other side is the linear game. The plot and outline of the campaign is missionstyle and laid out by the GM (for example, my Ashford Valley campaign in my Switching to Guns zine and my 27 Bicycles of Gondor scenario in my One Thousand and One Nights and One Night zine). The PCs have to solve a problem. The situations are modular so they can be switched around/changed to accommodate flow of play. Some people will call this railroading but, to me, railroading involves forcing the PCs to do things that give the players no choices. They must reach Alpha X by time Y or the universe will cease. This may seem like no choice but if the GM lets them choose which clue to follow to solve the problem, its not railroading. If, on the other hand, the GM forces them stepbystep to go on one particular path to Alpha X and any attempt to deviate results in being pushed back onto that path, forcibly or not, then that is railroading. My group usually does the linear games and it works for us. But Id love to run a sandbox game one of these days and maybe this will be the one.