RPT Newsletter #1,183 | My Simple Sandbox GM Tool - The 5 Actions

[Stephan Hornick]

My Simple Sandbox GM Tool - The 5 Actions
From JohnnFour | Published December 6, 2021

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1,183



Brief Word From Johnn
I'm not sure of the exact date I launched RoleplayingTips.com and newsletter #1.
But it was a wonderful day in November 1999.
Which means RPT is 22 years old now!
It can vote, drink, and roll its own dice.
Thank you to the readers who've been reading my rambles since the beginning. It's been a fun and wondrous path we've taken together to level-up our GMing.
And for new subscribers — welcome! I hope we adventure many times together.

A shout-out today to @Stephan Hornick. He's been hard at work porting over the Roleplaying Tips newsletter to my Campaign Community forum for discussion and sharing.
Check the RPT Article Collection & Discussions forum here to catch up on recent newsletters, ask questions, and join the discussion.

That's it from me today. I hope you have a game-full week!
And when you have a moment, tip a glass to another 22 years for Roleplaying Tips. Cheers.


My Simple Sandbox GM Tool - The 5 Actions
Sandbox games often challenge you to fabricate encounters on the spot.
I take a simple approach for this.
It's kind of cheap, when you think about it. lol.
But it works.

When RPT GM Scott K. emailed me, he said something that made me think about this aspect of sandbox games today:

I am really interested in this book because I write all my modules as a “sandbox” approach – which means the PCs often go in a completely unexpected direction.

The book Scott's referring to is my Thinking Faster On Your Feet PDF.
You can get a free copy of the How To Think Faster On Your Feet guide here (PDF 5MB).

I used to get surprised a lot by player choices.
I'd be GMing and doing ok. I'd be smug behind my screen, confidently providing descriptions, adjudicating the action, and rolling dice.
Suddenly the players would catch me by surprise.

"We use the magic claws to bypass your magically locked portals trapped up the wazoo and head straight into the sarcophagus through the wall."​

Khaaaaaan!

From confidence to panic in less than a second.
Now I'm on my back foot, scrambling.
It's fight, flight, or freeze.


Fake It & Make It
Before I share with you what I wrote back to Scott, let's talk about the cheap hack I perform now when I get sideswiped by players:

I fake it.

Without parachute or brakes, I pivot and keep rolling, pun intended, without any plan on what'll happen next.
I start with one idea — a seed.
I get this seed from the players.
They just told me something that derailed my plans or momentum.
So I use that for my seed.
It's almost always a character or group action.

In my example, the hobos were digging through living rock to Coolaid-man into my BBEG lair.
Ohhhh yeah!
So that was my seed...

...The situation of one character clawing through living rock and the party breaking into the vampire's bedroom.

Then I start adding details in real-time.
As I add details, an encounter or deeper situation begins to form.
I keep gameplay going and add stuff in as I go.

So before, I'd sit there and stew, trying to come up with a solution.
I'd want to:

• Build a quick encounter to keep going
• Drag & drop a back pocket encounter to stall
• Pause and try to invent something solid under the hot stares of my expectant players

But now I keep the game rolling and use emerging gameplay like a strong wind I can tack into to build out my situation.
It's a leap of faith.
Like starting a sentence without knowing first what point you want to make.
So it's a bit scary the first few times.
But in this way, I'm actually buying time as I work up the next chunk of gameplay for my waylaid encounter.

It's much easier to begin with a seed and build it out as gameplay progresses — by actually building onto the gameplay as it progresses.
The trick is, how can we do that without wrecking the adventure, offering up something lame, or killing the moment?
And that's what I shared with Scott, which I'll share with you right now, copied & pasted from my email to him:


The 5 Actions
Hey Scott,
I'm doing a tutorial on that topic right now for Platinum Patrons, in fact.
I call it the 5 Actions.

In my experience, all players will usually take one of five actions in an encounter or just prior:

• Parley
• Trick
• Discover
• Combat
• Avoid

If you run each encounter against each action and decide what you might do, it makes your plans so much more robust.
And that extra time, even if it's in the form of noodling on it once in a while, gives you space to think up interesting gameplay.
I hope Patrons like the tutorial. I find this an essential tool in my GM Toolbox now.
For sandbox play, you might have a few back pocket encounters.
But mostly it's about giving shape and substance to player decisions and character actions.

For example, if the players say they want to investigate the strange lights in the swamp, out of habit I'd think:

• [Parley] What kind of roleplaying opportunity can I add? (Who can I pull from my Cast of Characters?)
• [Trick] How could I try deceiving or tricking the party?
• [Discover] What's a clue or secret on my Knowledge Table that might fit here?
• [Combat] What's the conflict? What could impede, deplete, alert, delay, attack?
• [Avoid] What can I do if the players bail too early here?

By asking those types of questions a lot, I find you build a mental library of responses.
Some responses work better than others. I'll remember those to use again.
And so, over time, the 5 Actions — to me at least — are an ultimate sandbox GM Tool.


My Process to Thinking Faster On Your Feet
Players will always surprise us with their choices and character actions.
The secret to handling this with aplomb is to respond and keep playing, instead of to react and slow down.

Start with the gameplay seed already provided.
Then let the situation evolve, populating it with any ideas triggered by cycling through the 5 Actions.

• What's an NPC I could introduce in this moment?
• What could I place here that might trick the characters?
• What clue and hook for upcoming encounters could I place here?
• What conflict could I stir up here?
• What could I do if the players bail on this situation and choose another direction?

Answers to those questions, and ones like them, provide ideas for people, places, things, and events you can add to gameplay on-the-fly.
As you GM and these questions cycle, which they will as they become second nature, encounters build themselves.
In my experience, just memorizing the 5 Actions will trigger this effect.
They become like a mental checklist to give inspiration and guidance as you run by the seat of your pants.

Platinum Wizards of Adventure, you can watch the full tutorial here in the Adventure Building Master Game Plan lessons 5.02 - 5.05.
If you are not a Wizard of Adventure, you can get all the details here, it's just $10/month.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

Offer A Bonus For Good Description
From RPT DM Patrick

I have a long-standing rule at my table, one borrowed from 7th Sea, that if a player offers a "cinematic" description of their actions during a fight, they gain advantage.
This can't be the same description over and over.
It has to be something unique, or at least something the character hasn't done in a while.
Since implementing that rule, my players' characters have done all kinds of fun things. Leaping off furniture, or altars, swinging on chandeliers, jumping on the backs of creatures (both friendly and not), sliding between giants' legs, you name it.

It proves to have a boon in two ways.
One, it makes the narrative more fun (and since we stream live, more entertaining for viewers).
Two, it gets the players more engaged in watching how the combat unfurls, so they can find that next big thing going on that will provide fuel for their cinematic descriptions.
All in all it adds excitement and engagement for the players, DM, and in our case, viewers.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

W.A.I.T For It
From RPT GM RG

I am DM-ing 3 brand new players (+2 veterans).
They picked up a signet ring as random treasure.
Later through some role-playing they used the ring as trade for safe passage through Kobold lands.
Later still, one of the new players says, "We need to go back and get that signet ring - I think it might be important."
It wasn't - it was random loot.

Thankfully I chose to W.A.I.T.
Why Am I Talking?
I didn't say a thing - but I did make a note — "Signet ring, create a plot."
It's been 5 or so sessions and they still haven't gone after the ring, but they do mention it from time to time, and all it takes is a sly smile from the DM and the fires of adventure keep burning.
And if they do go after the ring, I plan to make the encounter memorable.

Thanks!

 

[Stephan Hornick]

It Starts With Yes
From RPT GM Mike

re: https://www.roleplayingtips.com/running-games/would-you-allow-this-in-your-game/

Johnn,

This is a great topic, and something I struggled with for many years in my gaming.
I used to default to “no”, unless proven otherwise by a rule; guilty until proven innocent.
That’s just plain un-fun.

Now, with that said, this was the days before open access to information (those new-fangled “internets”) and all we had to go on was the occasional magazine article or game product advice.
I’m not sure where it was, but some wise person said (actually I’m sure many wise people said it), start by saying “Yes”.

Start with “yes” and move from there.
It is often “yes, but…” so there may be caveats and limitations, and the end result may be “no”, but starting at Yes makes everything more positive.
I very much like your points, and think that is a logical way to think through these types of requests.
A couple other things I’d like to add:

1. As a DM I have to right to say “Yes, for now.”
   Reserving the right to disallow further use of whatever the decision impacted, because it harms or breaks the game.
   So you used it once, and that worked because (insert handwavium reason here) but now it doesn’t.
   
   
2. Using players' clever tactics against them should be done with caution.
   Honestly, “monsters” get to cheat a lot in many game systems, so giving them access to player tactics can seem cheap.
   When a player comes up with a fresh, new idea, and it is turned on them, this tends to make players not want to use clever tactics.
   Why add something cool if now the enemies will spam it over and over against the characters?
   I’ve had DMs do this to the point that every neat idea we came up with, came back to haunt us, multiplied 10-fold.
   That makes new ideas/tactics no fun whatsoever.
   In the end, as you say, the focus should be to “Have More Fun at Every Game!”

Thanks.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

First of all, thank you, @JohnnFour, for mentioning me in the newsletter. I'm happy to help and would like to increase discussions here with other GMs. I find them very helpful for all the new techniques and methods, and simultaneously very fruitful for all the fantastic ideas.

Although I never actively thought about the 5 Actions in my games, I can often later classify several of my decisions and thoughts as a GM to the one or the other of those 5 actions.
Even though I am prepared for a full session (and more) when the game starts, I actually love those moments of surprising player action the most. This is the moment I just abandon all that I prepared for now and dive right into the unknown, testing my abilities to run on the fly with those seeds the players present and expect to have a full adventure about.

I admit to often plant several optional adventure seeds and tricky situations / challenges beforehand so that I can come back to these in such situations.


Session Example
Last session the PCs had to cope with a wrong decision they made the session before and we had a full tense session about the consequences.

Having taken a lot of time in the afternoon with investigations on the road, the PCs arrived at the small village of Thistle Bush as dusk had already fallen. They intended to investigate that village as it had been destroyed by orcs and their inhabitants captured. Fearing that there were still some orcs left in the village, they proceeded slowly and with hardly any light. The PCs were right to be cautious, they were all no fighters.
As the horror of the orcs' harrassment of the people and signs of their cruelty became evident, the party's druid suddenly surprised me by wanting to speak to the crows flying above. I took that as an opportunity to allude to the fact that there were still things about in the village. Things that were dangerous. The PC asked several questions to determine if it were indeed orcs, but failed to nail it down. It were big green spiders with huge mandibles. And at the end of that session as one of those spiders jumped down on the lone musketeer the players realized their misconception of what the crows had warned them about.

Anyway, in that session the PCs suddenly came upon a plundering goblin. One more shot at the PCs to give the one spotted the chance to flee. As the elvish druid went after the one fleeing, the courageous bard stupidly ran towards the shooter in the darkness. He didn't know how many there were, but went anyway. And he was shot flat in the chest and sank down deadly wounded feeling poison spread through his organs.

The session after the druid tended the bard's wounds in a nearby house but was out of luck. The only thing that would heal him now was a magical healing potion. And they had none left. Their will'o'wisp companion pointed out that she felt such in the vicinity and the musketeer made haste. He went out into the village again knowing well that there were still goblins and spiders about and he was at the bad end of perception. Fearing another spider on the thatched roof of one nearby building, he threw a torch up to increase his range of vision. And the roof caught fire...
He tested the barrels on the street for water, but although something was slopping around, he didn't think it was water and so he ignored the fire for the time being. He managed to get back unhurt with a healing potion, but the fire was beginning to burn brighter.
Then the dire wolves that followed them (and the PC knew that) attacked the horse and wagon. Again, I gave the PCs the opportunity to decide between fire and dire wolves. All of the PCs ignored the fire.

After the short fight with the dire wolves (they managed to have them flee), the PCs decided that they would use the fire and bring the corpses inside for a fire funeral. And it was only then, that I had the will'o'wisp point out that the magic she talked about before was actually still inside.
"Oh, I would have thought you would take the magic boots and tunic for yourself before you leave the bodies within..."
This alone made the players wonder:
Can we succeed in walzing back in and getting the stuff? It is really burning hot right now and the roof seems to collapse any minute now...

And greedy as they are, the musketeer left his ammunition with the bard and ran into the building.

Last session is when this played out. There were collapsing building parts, fire, smoke, and then, as he finally managed to get the boots off those swollen feet, he noticed that one of those crashing noises outside must have been a shelf falling in front of the door and blocking it. He screamed for help. (I intended it to come to this to have this situation be solved only in a team effort)
Meanwhile, the bard noticed outside a glimpse of shadow from a torch that shouldn't be there and that looked strongly like a spider leg. It was gone in a split second but it made the bard fearful once more. He made the NPC wine merchant go back to his wagon while he put his back against the wagon himself. (The spider which was going after the lone girlfriend of the wine merchant was now turning around towards the bard.)
This was, when the bard called towards the druid to be careful of spiders and she answered that he should check also below the wagon. (a nice idea that I quickly took on) And as he jabbed his rapier wildly into the darkness below the wagon, he actually hit something and the spider quickly crawled out and attacked him in a frenzy. And he called back for help to the warrior-druid.
And again, this was the moment, she had to decide whom to help. I love those decisions.
To make this quick, she failed her thrown spear attack and actually punctured a hole into the wine cask on the wagon. The alcohol spew forth and drenched the bard and the spider in good smelling wine. The bard is addicted to wine and found this appealing, but likewise, as the wine merchant came to help with a torch, the bard's player saw the potential of this becoming desastrous. Luckily, the spider fled after having received several lashings of the rapier.
Likewise, as the druid freed the door inside and the two adventurers were running out of the collapsing house, the musketeer noticed a bag of flour on the floor of that bakery and a burning timber falling down right towards it. He chose to not intervene but push the druid out and the flour explosion engulfed both of them (and even the bard outside who had backed away from the spider attack - again planned by me to be in the right spot at the right time). Luckily, the bard ducked away and neither his alcohol-drenched clothing, nor the musketeer's ammunition belt caught fire. But all of the players were shocked by overseeing that very dire possibility. The druid and the musketeer were hurt a little bit, but then noticed that the roof behind them was sliding down and right ontop of them. The druid jumped away and was only hit on the ankle, the musketeer noticed that the burning timbers would crash down on the cask with some liquid he had checked the session before. He feared it could be oil or something and risked his life to shove it out of the way. He succeeded but was hit hard by the burning timbers now burrying him under them. He almost lost consciousness and was only freed in the last second by his companions before he could drink his last remaining healing potion.
They then fought the fire as true fire fighters, but to no avail. It had been burning too long and was now spreading to the rest of the village. Their only chance was a water spirit and the risk of offending it (again) and being attacked by something they had no chance of defending anymore.
Luckily, the druid succeeded in summoning the spirit and convincing it of their peril. She quickly agreed to a bargain and half of the village was overrun by a tsunami. In the end the PCs succeeded in stopping that fire and they survived. Barely. The players were awash with excitement and happy that they had managed this feat of survival and accomplishment.

And it had all began with a torch trown onto a village roof to make light a session before...

Hopefully, you saw in this example how I took the seeds of the players to make them into more gameplay.

 

[Stephan Hornick]

By the way, are these session examples too long? Do you read them?