{"id":6996,"date":"2022-12-12T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/?p=6996"},"modified":"2022-11-21T20:35:39","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T00:35:39","slug":"crashs-course-ep-04-sandboxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/2022\/12\/crashs-course-ep-04-sandboxing\/","title":{"rendered":"Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 04: Sandboxing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_7184\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-6996-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CrashsCourse_Ep_04_Sandboxing.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CrashsCourse_Ep_04_Sandboxing.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CrashsCourse_Ep_04_Sandboxing.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CrashsCourse_Ep_04_Sandboxing.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/?powerpress_pinw=6996-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CrashsCourse_Ep_04_Sandboxing.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"CrashsCourse_Ep_04_Sandboxing.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4404\" src=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse.png 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Hello and welcome to Crash\u2019s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Last time we talked about railroading, so in this episode I want to cover the other extreme: Sandboxing.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve likely seen the old joke: a pet or child is given a new toy, but they find the box to be far more enjoyable. Such is the pain of many a DM or GM, where they worked really hard on a campaign only to have the players adopt the first monster they encounter, then \u2013 if you\u2019re in my campaign \u2013 retire from adventuring and start a children\u2019s theater.<\/p>\n<p>My friends, I have a suggestion that I never would have made before I had 2 decades of teaching under my belt: What if you just \u2026 let them do that?<\/p>\n<p>TTRPGs are collaborative, aren\u2019t they? So why not let them have their fun? Sure, you still need to add things to the game as you\u2019re controlling the whole world except for the players, but with them making all the big choices you\u2019ll need a lot less time to prep things \u2026 with some caveats.<\/p>\n<p>Sly Fourish (of <a href=\"https:\/\/slyflourish.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">slyflourish.com<\/a> ) has some great ideas about this. I\u2019ve borrowed some, changed others, and added some new things, but here\u2019s the basics I follow:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>You still need a hook to get going. Something, anything, to prevent the dreaded moment when you ask \u201cSo what do you do?\u201d and get nothing but silence in return.A supersaturated solution will stay that way until there\u2019s something for all the crystals to form around.\n<p>Are the party seeking revenge for their home town being burned to the ground? Are they trainees in a Grand Company of adventurers? Are they shipwrecked and just trying to survive?<\/p>\n<p>That story hook might be abandoned early on or continue to be the driving motivation for the characters, but its main usefulness is in its role as a catalyst.<\/p>\n<p>I talk more about this in the last episode, so I\u2019m just going to move on now.<\/li>\n<li>Before each session, write down six to ten \u201csecrets.\u201d I\u2019m using quotes because you aren\u2019t required to keep these from your group at all costs. These will be things for you to keep in mind as you are deciding how the world reacts to the players\u2019 choices.Some of them will be very local and specific, like the driving motivation of a specific NPC friend of the party. Others might be more world-event-ish, like an army marching from one city to the next. The party might never encounter the army, but armies send out foragers and take from local farms. They scare away game animals and potentially drive more dangerous monsters towards (or away from) the party. The effects are felt even if you never see the troop formations.\n<p>Some of your secrets will carry over from one session to the next. Some will change or become irrelevant very quickly. Their usefulness is in the moment, where there\u2019s a pause in the action. A plot point is getting resolved? Look over your \u201csecrets\u201d to see what you can toss their way.<\/p>\n<p>As the campaign goes on, your \u201csecrets\u201d for each session should be direct or indirect results of player choices more and more often. If done right, it should be a mix of \u201cyou\u2019re powerful enough to make a difference in the world\u201d and \u201cthis is all your fault,\u201d but how you mix those two moods is up to your group dynamic.<\/p>\n<p>I like to keep all of my campaign secrets in a spreadsheet sorted by session date, but a notebook works just as well. If I\u2019m ever hunting for inspiration, I think about what the party has done in previous sessions. We haven\u2019t seen that NPC in months, what have they been up to? The party cleared out that haunted mansion last year. Has anyone or anything moved in since then? Is that better or worse?<\/li>\n<li>Browse for creature features. Go old school with the Monster Manual, 3<sup>rd<\/sup> party with Kobold Press, or anything in-between, but whatever your sources, you should scan through to find a handful of level-appropriate encounters. It\u2019s possible that most will never be used, but a truly unusual one might wind up as part of one of your secrets.Don\u2019t be afraid to \u201cre-skin\u201d a monster, either. The party opened a candy shop? Well, what if a rival shop owner hired a wizard to curse the party\u2019s shop? Cursed candy isn\u2019t a thing, but it doesn\u2019t take much of a stretch to say the earth elemental is made of rock candy or that mud mephit is actually marzipan. The stats remain the same, but now the flavor is based on what the players chose.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>That\u2019s all for this episode, subscribe to just this podcast at <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse\">is.aaronbsmith.com\/@crashscourse<\/a> or all my D&amp;D podcasts at <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/\">aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel<\/a> for future episodes.<\/p>\n<p>Music is <a href=\"http:\/\/modarchive.org\/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&amp;query=169788\">Deadly Windmills by JAM from modarchive.org<\/a>, used with permission, as it\u2019s public domain.<\/p>\n<p>This podcast is distributed under a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\">CC-BY-NC-ND<\/a> license.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Follow this series on\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#x25b6;Patreon: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cogwheelgaming\">https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cogwheelgaming<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6;Mastodon: <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6;Mastodon: <a rel=\"me\" href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6;Google Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYXJvbmJzbWl0aC5jb20vY29nd2hlZWwvZmVlZC8\">https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYXJvbmJzbWl0aC5jb20vY29nd2hlZWwvZmVlZC8<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6;Apple Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cogwheel-gaming\/id1291681389\">https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cogwheel-gaming\/id1291681389<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>MP3 Download: <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/CrashsCourse_Ep_04_Sandboxing.mp3\">Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 04: Sandboxing<\/a><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=6006674\">Keep us ad free by supporting us on Patreon!<\/a><br \/>\nThanks to our current Patreon Patrons (as of this upload&#8230;): Chris, Cindy<span class=\"sc-AxirZ bmNQcS\" data-tag=\"user-details-full-name\"> (Patron Emeritus)<\/span>, Ellie, Erik<span class=\"sc-AxirZ bmNQcS\" data-tag=\"user-details-full-name\">, ShanShen, and Walter!<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello and welcome to Crash\u2019s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes. Last time we talked about railroading, so in this episode I want to cover the other extreme: Sandboxing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[312,293],"tags":[362,318,295,327],"class_list":["post-6996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast","category-ttrpg","tag-crashscourse","tag-dnd","tag-dungeons-and-dragons","tag-ttrpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6999,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996\/revisions\/6999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}