D&D 5E What separates a sandbox adventure from an AP?

[S'mon]

Again, we've had the conversation before about modern RPGs introducing Storytelling game elements and you know that when I discuss RPGs in the above posts, I'm discussing the functionality of a traditional RPG.

The stuff Pemerton is talking about - frame scenes for drama, let the players determine
outcome - existed at least since the 1980s, so it's not all that modern. All the licensed-genre fiction
games like James Bond 007, Indiana Jones RPG, d6 Star Wars etc had something like that
I think. The d20 'Midnight' campaign I played in ca 2003 did that very heavily, and I've
always done & experienced it a lot in PBEM RPG play back to the mid '90s and in
play-by-post games before that. Scene framing & railroading are the two main ways you get
the like-a-movie experience that people want from licensed-genre RPGs like Indiana Jones,
and some other games too - you could run The Price of Freedom as a sandbox set in wilderness Colorado
(Wolverines!) but that's not the thrust of the GMing advice.

I don't think scene-framing is marginal to RPGs at all - maybe it's somewhat marginal to D&D
(outside of the 4e DMGs).

 

[S'mon]

Dunno about published. But - never having bought or played a Paizo AP myself - I've always assumed that those who do play them might dip in and out, or use one leg of the AP for part of their campaign. I've never assumed that most players of them religiously start at 1st level and go all the way through to 20th.

Paizo APs do want you starting at 1st level, but they often do allow for chunks to be skipped (I left out Book 4 of Curse of the Crimson Throne) and other stuff added in (my players went to Kaer Maga instead). I had a great time running Book 1 of Rise of the Runelords as a sandbox -using 1e AD&D rules, so the PCs didn't out-level the adventure - with tons of extra Sandpoint stuff added in.

IME esp from the London D&D Meetup, from what I've seen of AP campaigns:
1. Most commonly the campaign trails off and dies prior to completing the AP.
2. Next most commonly the group completes the AP and ends the campaign.
3. Least commonly the group keeps playing the campaign after conclusion of the AP.

The 1e proto-APs (Slave Lords, GDQ) are much better suited to forming just part of a campaign.
Paizo APs by design at least tentpole the campaign - you can add & subtract stuff around the
main pole, but you can't ignore it without abandoning the AP. And they tend not to be
designed well for starting at Book 3 or Book 5 with higher level PCs.

 

[Mark CMG]

The stuff Pemerton is talking about - frame scenes for drama, let the players determine
outcome - existed at least since the 1980s, so it's not all that modern. All the licensed-genre fiction
games like James Bond 007, Indiana Jones RPG, d6 Star Wars etc had something like that
I think. The d20 'Midnight' campaign I played in ca 2003 did that very heavily, and I've
always done & experienced it a lot in PBEM RPG play back to the mid '90s and in
play-by-post games before that. I don't think it's marginal to RPGs at all - maybe it's
somewhat marginal to D&D.

It was rare back then (and in a proto-form) but very much in vogue now (since the advent of full-fledged Storytelling games), and it isn't inherent to RPGs as it allows the player to affect the setting beyond doing so through his character / role. So, yes, it is a Storytelling game element that is sometimes grafted onto modern RPGs. I have no doubt that experimentation with limited forms of such things has been around for quite some time and gave rise eventually to Storytelling games. I've said as much many time.

 

[S'mon]

It was rare back then (and in a proto-form) but very much in vogue now (since the advent of full-fledged Storytelling games), and
it isn't inherent to RPGs as it allows the player to affect the setting
beyond doing so through his character / role.

Er, no it doesn't.

Standard scene-framing is just that: GM frames scene*, players decide how their PCs react.
The players don't get narrative authority, and so it doesn't prevent immersion the way
story-creation games do.

*For drama, rather than as a pure simulated outcome of prior in-game procedure.

 

[Mark CMG]

Er, no it doesn't.

Standard scene-framing is just that: GM frames scene*, players decide how their PCs react.
The players don't get narrative authority, and so it doesn't prevent immersion the way
story-creation games do.

*For drama, rather than as a pure simulated outcome of prior in-game procedure.

Right. I was discussing in relation to players doing the scene framing. It is true that GMs can frame scenes and thus limit some player choices, and such does slide such games further from the Sandbox end of the choice continuum that I have previously outlined.

 

[pemerton]

I was discussing in relation to players doing the scene framing.

I don't know why. I didn't talk about any such thing. I talked about certain non-sandbox GMing techniques for avoiding railroading. I never said anything about player narrative authority.

 

[Mark CMG]

I don't know why. I didn't talk about any such thing. I talked about certain non-sandbox GMing techniques for avoiding railroading. I never said anything about player narrative authority.

Where you mention scene framing being player-driven is what led me to that.

The standard term for this sort of game is "scene-framing". It is non-sandbox but player-driven.

Nevertheless, anything set up in advance scene-wise moves things further from the Sandbox end of the continuum. If it is strictly setting information being given by the GM after players have chosen where they will go, then it moves away from being toward the Sandbox end less so. If it is the GM detailing pre-arranged scenes and players only driving the action within a series of set scenes, it moves further along the choice continuum toward the Railroad end.

 

[Lanefan]

Interesting. I have never seen it used in a way other than "complete campaign from 1st to X" other than in a sort of retroactive application to 1E adventure series, and even then it's usually in context to GDQ or DL. The term was coined by Paizo during their Dungeon era, if I am not mistaken, and their form is the only one I am familiar with. What would constitute a published AP that isn't primarily intended to be a whole campaign?

Just because Paizo use the term that way doesn't mean I have to.

What Paizo did was invent a perfectly useful term that I then stole and used in reference to path-like things I'd already run in the past inside of larger campaigns. What's been published under the term is irrelevant to me.

Lan-"I see it as somewhat limiting, how Paizo have so tied their game to the path concept and thus eschewed standalone adventures"-efan

 

[Reynard]

Just because Paizo use the term that way doesn't mean I have to.

Sure, but when discussing a term with a known meaning, it can be problematic to bring another meaning to that term and assume other folks are reading the term the way you are.

 

[Mark CMG]

Sure, but when discussing a term with a known meaning, it can be problematic to bring another meaning to that term and assume other folks are reading the term the way you are.

Like Sandbox?


. . . and Railroad?


. . . . . . and RPG?