How Do I Even...?

Ya, bro, I know. I'm often in a debate about how to handle this sort of thing.

Fact is: I love solo sidetrack story lines. They seem extremely realistic to me. All characters might duck out for a second here and there. No guarantee that all 4 - 7 party members are going to be connected at the hip for all hours of every day.

But when that happens you have to decide:
1) openly publish the developments
2) manage in privately with only the sidetracker (in real life this is "Alright, ____. Come with me to the side room and we discuss this away from the crowd." In PBP it is the Note option.

As a fan of the game and for the hope of letting the players share in the fun of all story lines, I lean pretty strongly towards Option 1.

BUT... I know it is ABSOLUTELY IRRESISTIBLE for some players to read and use info that their characters 100% WOULD NOT HAVE, and start influencing decision-making. It seems to be almost impossible to stop with some people.

SO...sometimes I choose Option 2, just to make it more like it would be IRL for the characters: they have no freaking clue, zero input to and zero influence from the side track. It's the only way to guarantee that.

I've seen it in practice as both a Player and as a DM.

In another game I play in, I ran the character on a side track that turned quite meaningful. Pushed the issue to a huge and very interesting development. Privately with only one other NPC. But it was published and all players read it, even though their characters would have had no clue of it. Just about every one of them TOTALLY meta-gamed it out later as they decided what to think and how to act. They incorporated their knowledge about that private scene into their characters' choices, demeanor, viewpoint, etc. It was really annoying to me.

As a DM, I've done both and bounce back and forth. Jabes, you have definitely seen me ride the fence on this. Sometimes I just judge on how important the info is. If it is likely just fluff, I leave it open to the audience for entertainment. If it could go high influential or skew other PC choices, maybe I block it off to Note. But then sometimes you just can't tell in advance.

Here in First Foray, I LOVE the open publication of all story lines. To be completely clear: I think it works just fine without the slightest doubt. It is extremely entertaining. Seasoned players can enjoy scenes for their own sake without intention of angling for their character. No one here is going to exploit it or otherwise use it for unrealistic results. Sometimes I even decide to not read some entries so that I don't have the info unintentionally creep into choices, and I think that is a decent self-safeguard if someone wants to be absolutely sure - but it's not required because you can always read and enjoy, but then ignore as an influence.

The challenge though is elsewhere when you have either
1) a really serious games where the stakes are high and therefore the temptations to bend for advantage inevitably go up (and this is no fault of the players in many cases, it is very hard to ignore key data), or
2) you have players that you don't know as well or are less likely to police themselves.

I just realized that I haven't thanked you guys for the above. Thanks! I really appreciate all your input!

Now about Ybus wandering off, I briefly considered running that via new thread or secret note but I wasn't worried about you guys metagaming, and anyway I thought you might enjoy reading along the side-story. On the other hand, a case might be made that it breaks immersion, or that everyone making all the effort to not metagame is in itself an undesirable situation that robs you of your fun.

Thoughts?

I have been doing a lot of thinking on sandbox games lately. Since I have interim reports due tomorrow, I will procrastinate and type out these thoughts instead of getting my work done. I'd enjoy any feedback about these ideas.

I agree with the above sentiments that sandbox games are not necessarily all that, and you can give players a feeling of agency and control in a variety of ways. But, I love sandbox games. My love of RPGs probably crystallized around playing Traveller with a huge star map, a piece of junk space ship, and enough gas to get me 5 hexes in any direction. So, when I play a game that's really really what I love, it probably hits those vibes hard.

I think the formula for a good sandbox game is pretty much like this:

1. Players begin the sandbox with a clear objective in mind that players buy into before the adventure even begins. This premise cannot be refused, it must be embraced completely.
2. The world has clear, finite boundaries and you're stuck in it. Not too small, not too large.
3. There are many fun plastic dinosaurs buried in the sandbox that reward you for digging around in it - NPCs, secrets, connections, monsters, treasures, intriguing tales, etc.
4. There must be some urgency to complete the objective.

The original Ravenloft module (I6) is the best example of a good sandbox adventure that I can think of. You get put on a track right at the beginning with a clear goal - go to Barovia and kill a vampire! And once you accept the mission, you can't get out until you complete the mission. The start and finish are both predetermined as hell. But, once you are railroaded into Barovia, you can do anything, in any order. And there are tons of fun things to do, secrets to discover, connections to make, things to kill. But, the choices are finite - the mists of Barovia provide distinct boundaries to the world. I think Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation also make use of this formula, although I haven't played them.

If the sandbox is bookended correctly and stocked full of cool things, I think it can work marvellously. If any of these things fail, however, the game also fails. If you break 1, players don't have a direction and it feels like random wandering. If you break 2, players can too easily reject the premise or shrug off pressure. If you break 3, the game is boring. I think you can break 4 with the right players, but it pressure keeps the game moving forward and encourages players to make those tough decisions.

Of course your players have to be fans of sandbox gaming and many players aren't, even if they think they are. The party overall needs to be very proactive and purposefully engage with the world. Ideally, the DM in this type of game is being reactive most of the time, having the world respond to the character's actions. Sometimes the DM will stir things up and set something in motion, and the players have to react instead, but usually that is just a consequence of something the PCs did earlier. If PCs just wait around for the story to come to them, it won't work no matter what.

I thinking a lot about this because sandbox games are my favourite style of game to run. I want to run them better.

I, on the other hand love the turtles! I don't want Baracus's disposition for violence to disguise how fun I think this is :)

Take them or not, I have no preference either way. I've made my little joke, haha, I won't mind if you guys want ...