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[Melan]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw2

1) I've been told adventure writing is an art, but if you are simply following the direction of PCs does it require even more skill to pull off?

No, just a willingness to improvise, to run with the ideas the players give you and spin them into adventures. You need fairly active people to pull it off, though, so if the players are more into following a plotline, sandbox games are not the best solution. Much of sandox gaming is based on the recipe of provocative open situation --> action --> reaction, with a random component thrown in to spice up and complicate things.

2) Does it dramatically increase the preparation time needed? (You may take this question however you feel.)

Hard to say, but it did not increase mine. It could increase it if you compulsively detail everything. On the other hand, if you work from a few sketchily written adventure hooks, random encounters and small adventure sites, you should be okay. Basically, you want to avoid overextending yourself and eventually not using the majority of what you have written. So small, modular parts might work better. I have done a lot of these for my Wilderlands campaign: see Isle of the Water Sprites or The House of Rogat Demazien for examples which were originally vignettes at about three or four pages each plus some maps. No great work to write, and it was not a big waste if some of them did not end up in play immediately (I only ran Water Sprites last weekend, in fact).

3) Would you recommend it to new DMs? And why or why not?

I would, since I ran what is now called a "sandbox campaign" when I started DMing at the ripe old age of 13, and did it for about two years without writing more than about 20-30 pages of adventure text in the meantime (sadly, this also means much of that campaign is lost to forgetfulness... - all I have is the maps and a few sheets of in-game notes). It doesn't take an "experienced" or "qualified" DM to run a sandbox game, just one willing and able to make up stuff and run with the ideas the players give him. Also, practice makes perfect, and improvisation is a skill that's pretty easy to build up.