[joe15552]

I am in the middle of a table-top sandbox game, and it is going rather well. I knew by experience that there were going to be 2 major problems, and I made a rule, and acted a certain way out-of-game to rectify those 2 problems:

1) The characters need direction. Shadowrun has a lot of lore and info, and it's easy for players to go, "I'm going to Japan" or "I'm going to Zimbabwe to meditate", and all players get split and you end up running 1 game per player instead of just one game for all players. I believe the simple solution, and it seems to be working VERY well on table top, is asking the players to vote out-of-game for a player that they believe can handle calling the shots for the team in-game. I put no restriction on the character type, they could choose to have a greasy, nasty, uncouth troll for their leader if they want, they just have to make the out-of-game decision to follow that character's in-game instructions. In my game, it was a unanimous vote that one particular player be the team leader, so it worked out very well. Of course we all knew each other, and that particular player is known to be intelligent and decision oriented.

2) The GM's perception of the Shadowrun world may be different than the player's perception of the Shadowrun world. In a sandbox game, this can lead to crazy arguments that go way off on crazy tangents that take away from the game. I chose to make the first job the players chose to undertake a "gimme" job. In other words, I gave them advice out-of-game that helped them figure out the legwork and how different groups interact in my game. Now the rest of the jobs they choose to do will be more hands off, since they got a nice "crash-course" on how Shadowrun works in joe15552's brain.

Has anyone tried Sandbox-type games in PBP? Do you think that that my solutions will work in PBP for the problems that I pointed out? Are there other major problems that have arisen in PBP sandbox games that I did not mention here?

Any input would be helpful.

[Loki]

As PbP players probably will not have much shared gaming history it may prove disastrous for the leadership vote to be held to early. Someone may write up a character who appears a good leader and the player may lack the skills or capacity to fill the role. I suggest extending your 2nd point to 2 or more runs, as needed, to let them get a feel for each other. Other than that, sounds groovy. 

[Kot]

The European Vacation game is pretty much that. There is a goal the players can achieve, and the TriCity they're working in. Besides that, I try to present them with a game they can play their way on my terms, and with as much freedom of choice I can cram into a PbF game. Off course that leads to situations where they can't decide on what to do now - and Sentinemodo already dealt with that in his Misssions 2. He gives a few choices of actions/places to visit, and that's usually enough. As I did with the EV game, but it wasn't that obvious. I just reminded them on the stuff they can do now.

[Man Who Walks At Night]

Before I comment.. what is a PBP game?

[FastJack]

Before I comment.. what is a PBP game?

Play by Post

[Man Who Walks At Night]

Play by Post

Thanks - new fo the forum (not to SR) so still a few terms Im not familiar with

While I have plenty of experience with running sandbox games, I only have very limited experiences with PBP games (did a little wayyyy back when FidoNet was the big thing ), so I think I'll refrain from playing wise on this topic.

Thanks again though FastJack for spelling out what it meant

[Crimsondude]

Shadowland

I haven't logged on for a year but it is designed exactly for what you are looking for.

As for experience, yes I have done that exact thing where I had games for a dozen different players all at once where most were in different locations. I'll be honest and tell you it was not easy and I had planning and very cooperative players. But that was a unique situation/campaign (pimps link to campaign novel in my tumblr - There's Nothing Free). But in most cases it is pretty easy to do provided you are patient.

As for your questions, the first can be rectified that way. We usually just ran multiple characters so one could be doing espionage for the Tir in Seattle and have another in Indonesia and another in the SCIRE killing Banded holdovers. The second depends on your players, but it sounds good just to get accustomed to the system and playing with each other.

Mod edit: Fixed the link

[CanRay]

Wow, that's some classic webpage work there.  '90s and suggestions that you use Netscape.

...

I now feel old.   

[Crimsondude]

It hadn't been updated in a decade and it's still one of the most advanced java sites. Of course I wouldn't care about a gaming site if I was Dave either.