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

[Blackbrrd]

That misses the point of the term "railroad " entirely and broadens it to the point of being meaningless. It's a metaphor. A railroad is a singular linear path. A sandbox by definition can't be a railroad and even an AP isn't necessarily a railroad. A good AP is closer to a highway system: you always start in Boston and you always end up in Washington DC, but there are lots of different routs with different scenery to get there.

If you always end up in Washington DC and it looks the same every time, no matter what route you took, I think it's still a railroad. To the players, it might not feel like a railroad, which is a huge improvement.

On the other hand, if the route you take really affects the end point, it's much less of a railroad. Take Red Hand of Doom, excepting the last chapter, which then would end up with a big fight. The big fight is genuinely affected depending on what actions was taken during the super-module. This makes Red Hand of Doom more of a sandbox than a railroad. Which made it a blast to run.

I recently ran an adventure, Reavers of Harkenworld, and it was written so that you could run it like a railroad, but at the same time, they did a great job describing the motivations/plans of the villains. This made it pretty easy to re-write the adventure from the PCs actions. For instance, my players ended up taking the keep first, then they staged an assassination on the Iron Circle leader and "escorted" the leaderless Iron Circle mercenaries out of the valley.

I was trying to prepare the session after they took the keep, but I had no idea of what the PCs were going to do, so I just prepared what kind of people the Iron Circle leader would have around him if he ended up fighting without his army. The players then decided to go after the army, scout it out. I had prepared for this too, giving the players some dice to decide the outcome of the fight. Since the PCs were not there, I gave small chances of a total victory for any side. It ended up with a stale mate, with the Iron Circle still not across the river.

The PC's started wanting description of the camp, because they wanted the Iron Circle leader dead. I then decided that the camp would be focused on the bridge/river, with the baggage train in the back an camp fires in front to light the river. The Rogue asked if he could make some slow-fuse fire bombs which he could plant in the baggage train, while the Paladin wanted to contact the villagers/elves to attack the Iron Circle if they wanted to get water from the river. This was all executed very well, they then bluffed/sneaked into the middle of the camp and got 2d6 rounds of uninterrupted boss-fighting time due to the chaos they had set up. It ended up with 4 rounds, which was just enough. At this point the PC's high-tailed it out, partially saved by the Rogue just slaughtering one of the lagging pursuers, spreading some more chaos.

This last bit was run completely sandbox-mode. The world was only put together as the PC's explored it. The preparation on my side coming down to thinking through some important anchor points: what the outcome of the battle would be, and what the NPCs would do if the PCs didn't act. They did act though and I could use some of that preparation to improvise the actual session. I don't think the players ever thought I was making it up at the spot.

It's a bit amusing how much Reavers of Harkenworld reminds me of a low-level Red Hand of Doom. Two of the best adventures I have run. Going to go with Madness at Gardmoore Abbey, which looks to be another adventure which can quite easily be adjusted to run more like a sandbox.

Anyway, when I try to run a sandbox, I never try to get the adventure or whatever I have written to have a particular outcome. I write up the motivations and only plan for likely actions/reactions of the NPCs. An AP is much more about how the PC's can react to the actions of the NPCs or pre-planned events. Sure, I can use an AP to create a sandbox, but that would very likely mean I would have to scrap a LOT of the content.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Correct. The first "Adventure Path" was Age of Worms, which premiered in Dungeon Magazine. It stood out because the magazine published an adventure in the series each month for twelve months, which was unprecedented. A1-4 is a pretty good example of a proto-ap. I would sooner point to the GDQ series (Against the Giants 1-3, Decent into the Depths of the Earth 1-3, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits).

Shackled City predates Age of Worms, though it's 12 adventures didnt run in back to back issues (it spans 97 - 116). Its also a lot looser in feel than Age of Worms, as the overall metaplot/threat rears its head later.

There are also some neat mini arcs in Dungeon. The Seeds of Sehan is a pretty neat trio of adventures in 145 - 147 and will take you from 7/8 to 10/11. Starts out as you investigating a drug cartel whose product is a demon lord's euphoria inducing goop that turns you into an alien plant.

 

[pemerton]

The difficulty, and why so many adventures are disliked, is finding a goal the players like.

I don't think that's the only difficulty. I'm not even sure it's the main difficulty.

I've just read through I3 Pharoah, regarded by many as a classic adventure. It has a goal that I think many players would like - loot an ancient pyramid and thereby restore life and water to the barren desert.

But the adventure has huge chunks of material that are not really relevant to that goal at all: they don't speak to the lost pharoah, nor to the ancient-ness of the pyramid, nor to the theme of restoring life to the desert. They are just pretty traditional dungeon encounters, tricks and traps.

Furthermore, the adventure makes no provision for connecting the PCs to its goal in any deep fashion: in fact, its premise is that the PCs are strangers to the desert, to the pyramid and to the overall situation.

Many lesser adventures display the same phenomenon: the goal of the adventure is, essentially, a McGuffin or plot device. It lures the PCs in, but it doesn't actually inform the players' experience in playing the adventure. Even in Pharoah, the ostensible theme is relevant in making sense of certain clues and unravelling certain tricks, but it doesn't inform the play experience in any deep fashion.

It's not actually an adventure about restoring a wasteland to life by engaging with a lost and ancient culture.

the game is never really player-driven even when it is a sandbox.

that's why the continuum is constructed as a theoretical model with Sandbox at one end and Railroad at the other

Both these claims are contentious.

What is the essence of a roleplaying adventure? The PCs find themselves confronted with some sort of challenge or situation to resolve; they try to resolve it; and this attempt at resolution has consequences.

Who controls what the PCs are confronted by? In a sandbox, the ideal is that the players control this (choosing from a list prepared by the GM). In scene-framing play, the GM chooses the details of this, paying attention to what the players have indicated about the sorts of situations they want their PCs to engage in (a simple example: the player of a cleric of Thor probably wants to confront giants or ogres). In a railroad, the GM chooses this unilaterally.

Who determines the consequences of resolution? In a sandbox, the ideal is that the GM adjudicates changes in the setting based on the outcomes of the PC's actions. So the players can try and drive change, mediated via the GM. What can go wrong? Lazy GMing - the GM doesn't want to change his/her original list of challenges to take on. A boring setting that has little scope for interesting or meaningful change. A GM who is wedded to campaign metaplot.

In scene-framing play, the ideal is that the outcome of one confrontation should generate the seeds of the next, using the same method of GM uptake of player signals. So the players absolutely can drive the game. What can go wrong? The GM misreads the players' signals, or frames the players into boring challenges.

In a railroad, the consequences are already determined before play begins. In the case of an Adventure Path, they have been written down by the AP authors. There may be marginal variations in response to player choices and player actions, but ultimately the path of events, and of challenges, is predetermined. That's what makes it an Adventure Path. What can go wrong? The players wanted to drive the game, rather than work their way through the GM's story.

So player-driven play is possible, and there are at least two versions of it: sandboxing and scene-framing. Maybe others too that I'm not familiar with.

This last bit was run completely sandbox-mode. The world was only put together as the PC's explored it.

That doesn't sound like a sandbox. It sounds closer to No Myth.

A strength of No Myth over sandboxing is that the setting is guaranteed to be responsive to the interests and concerns demonstrated by the players. In that way it is very player driven. But for some players, of course, this is a weakness rather than a strength, because they want a gameworld that is "real" and exists as an object of exploration independent of their interests and desires. For those players, traditional sandboxing is preferable.

(You seem to allude to this desire, by some players, for a "real" gameworld when you say "I don't think the players ever thought I was making it up at the spot.")

 

[pemerton]

To me, those are decisions, not goals. The goal would be "stop the evil paladin" or "do something about this demon" or whatever, and then the players choose how to approach that (slaughter, redemption, alliance, etc.).

To clarify why this isn't a semantic distinction, if a published adventure features a fallen paladin antagonist, most of the material in it is going to be about dealing with that antagonist. If the players want to hew off in some totally different direction, it usually isn't covered so well. Hence the feeling that many published adventures are railroads.

A published adventure inevitably is going to pose some sort of challenge or situation for the players to confront (via their PCs). If the players aren't interested in this, then there will be a problem. But that applies equally to a sandbox module.

If I turn up with (say) the City of Greyhawk boxed set, and my players want to play a pirate game rather than a city game, there will be a problem. The fact that the adventure setting is a sandbox doesn't change that.

The sandbox works well because it has clear boundaries (hence sandbox). There's a sort of meta-game, social-contract thing where the DM says to the players, "You can do whatever you want, as long as you stay within this area. Want to skip the dungeon and just start slaughtering townsfolk? Be my guest. But if you leave the valley, I ain't got no D&D material prepared, so you'll either have to suffer my spotty improvisational skills, or else we end this session and pick up next week."

I don't see how this is any different from dealing with the fallen paladin. "You don't want to confront the fallen paladin, but rather want to overthrow the king? Then you'll either have to suffer improvisation or wait til next week."

In both cases, the issue - from the GM's point of view - is finding something interesting to your players.

But that doesn't change the fact that a module can be written to allow the players to decide what their PCs' goals are, and what counts as success. As a practical matter, though, it probably has to be shorter than a traditional dungeon module - if not in actual page count, then in number of challenges it presents. Roughly, these should be the intro, the foreshadowing and then the crunch - because anything more than that and you've got stuff that isn't really responsive to or reflective of player choices. (And this is the problem with Heathen as written that I mentioned - filler encounters that don't introduce or foreshadow, but are just time-wasters that do not provide the players with any chance to make meaningful choices or engage with their PCs' goals.)

Another module that I think supports player-driven play is the Penumbra d20 module Maiden Voyage. I recently ran that adventure using Burning Wheel - writeup here.

 

[edhel]

Here's my general sandbox advice from an earlier sandbox thread.

Now to specifics:

I mean in the implementation, not the high-level design goals. What would you expect from a sandbox that is not delivered by an AP, and how would you expect a published sandbox adventure to be laid out? Are there any examples of published sandboxes? (I can't think of any, but I am also not well-versed in ye olde modules of yore).

I'd say most AD&D location-based adventures are mini sandboxes, and there some very sandbox-y modules even for 3rd edition, like The Red Hand of Doom or the Castle Ravenloft adventure book. Most modules and their adventure locations can be inserted into your sandbox.

What I'd like to see is interesting cultural bits, plot hooks, plot points (mini adventures or conflicts), possible sandbox premises etc. If there are ruins, don't describe them but make a ruin generator (a random table). That kind of stuff - tools you can both read, use, and reuse.

Here are some things I'm having trouble with in sandbox design:

The introduction: How railroady is too railroady? Is it ok to open with a framing story like "You guys are on your way to meet King Soandso who as a secret task for you. You were intrigued so here you are," or is that too contrived? I guess I'm asking, what is the best way to get the players moving in a direction, any direction? In previous sandboxes players have complained that they simply didn't know what to do next.

Player vs monster level: This is much less of a problem in 5E than in 4E, but how do you plan appropriately balanced encounters in a sandbox when you don't know when or how players will tackle them? Or is this a feature of the sandbox, that players will run into things that can TPK them? Or that they'll run into encounters they can steamroll? I don't like the Oblivion/Skyrim "monsters are always your level" play that 4E pretty much required (or you were forced to run linear adventures, which is what I want to step away from), but I don't have an answer for the level disparity problem (if, indeed, it even is a problem).

The conclusion: When is a sandbox adventure over? My players are a big fan of free agency, but they are equally big fans of story, including the climax, the denouement, and the eventual end. But in a sandbox it seems like the ending is a lot more ambiguous, and more so the number of open threads you have going on. One thought I had was having all extant story threads funnel into one overarching epic, with all the foes they have fought along the way being pawns of one BBEG, but perhaps that's been done to death? Contrived? I don't know.

Player paralysis: With no big sign saying "go here, do this" my players are apt to scratch their heads and say, "I dunnow." And I by no means blame my players. I don't really think I'm that great of a DM, so I am either laying too subtle clues or I'm over-complicating my stories. I think it was Angry DM who once said to me on Twitter that even having a story (and I might be grossly oversimplifying or wildly misinterpreting what he meant) meant I was tacitly railroading my players. If that's the case, is player paralysis a function of their expectation that I have a trail for them to always follow? How do you instigate player action that more organically generates adventure?

Setting material: In no event has a player ever read any material I have ever written for an adventure. So is it a waste of my time? Is it still any good for internal consistency? Is internal consistency even necessary for player immersion? When you read a published campaign setting or sandbox adventure, do you as a DM actually read things like calendars, historical timelines, and exhaustive breakdowns of churches and factions? Do such things enhance sandboxes and where is the line that you've written too much?

The introduction: My problem with your example is that there's nothing at stake. If you want players be interested, start the game by having something they care about. Some jackass king telling them something doesn't hook ~anyone, sorry to say. Who is this guy anyway and why should they care what problems he has?
Let the players invent something for their characters - families, businesses, goals - and threaten that with your sandbox's metaplot. The players will have their characters respond organically to threats if they are internally motivated. Not knowing what to do next means they don't care about things enough, or the threats aren't specific enough.
Be intimate with your threats - forget about 'saving the world/kingdom/magic gem'.

Player vs monster level: This is a very system-specific problem but I haven't really encountered much problems with 5e. I foreshadow tough encounters, and the characters usually have an opportunity to escape if things turn sour. If they get killed, they get killed. Getting captured is more fun though. Getting ransomed is even better since it's humiliating and gives internal motivation to the players.

The conclusion: I plan sandboxes from the antagonists' perspective. When the players have discovered the BBEG's plan and are motivated to stop it, we'll play to see what happens. If they're not that interested in the grand machinations, we'll stop at a dramatically appropriate place. You can always play another set of characters in the same sandbox, and possibly even return to the old ones at some point.

Player paralysis: They aren't motivated and/or they don't know what's going on. Your premises should be about something immediate that needs to be dealt with that leads to something larger. Make it human and understandable. All the fantasy stuff around the basic premise is just a tool for the main antagonist. Players should understand the motivations of the antagonists through their actions, and not wonder why magic wand #6 is so critical for magic stone #8's guardian unicorn spirit. My general advice link has more on this. Also remember that you aren't creating a story or the plot, you are just setting the premise and a loose campaign framework that you don't completely have to think through in the beginning. We humans are able to create mental narratives out of completely chaotic things all the time.

Example: An old wizard lives in the Dreamlands and wants to come back to the waking world after being away a thousand years. His tools are his gug lieutenants who recruit waking world witches who in turn recruit young bravos of the local native tribes. The young fighters of these tribes get organized and start gathering for war. They are motivated to take back their lands from the Old Empire, and they are also handsomely rewarded by the wizard's dream-gold. Now, the player characters live their quiet lives in a small fishing village and the campaign starts when the natives attack the village and steal something from the graveyard. Ultimately the wizard's plan is to kill enough natives (all marked with the wizard's symbol) to power his wizardry to bring him back to the waking world.
The story isn't about the wizard, it's about the player characters, their lives, and how they will rise up to the challenge. One PC's daughter was kidnapped in the first raid, they can't kill hundreds or thousands of warriors (and shouldn't), and the people they know are threatened. You don't need a king to say anything to them.

Setting material: If they don't read it, it's a waste. Fictional history is (imho) boring and usually useless unless it directly relates to the premise. You can write about fictional history endlessly as easily as people can ignore it. Imagine a historical non-literate person and imagine how much he would know about the history of his town and land. Not much. Write about that much. When the characters adventure it might be important to learn more ("Who was this wizard guy anyway? Why are the tribes angry at us?").
Calendars and tracking time are important, and you could write about harvest time and the holy/special days. Those will come up at some point and they add color to the world. Maybe the winter solstice is actually a corrupted form of Wizard-worship. Factions and churches are only interesting if you have interesting ideas. Anyone can come up with another thieves' guild, secret society, mad cult etc. Unless the Church of Uranium Crown is relevant to the sandbox's premise, you can let the players invent their own religions and customs. It's more fun that way and less work for you. Or you could make create-your-own-religion tables and find out that in the Big City they worship *roll* the Red Deer who *roll* demands obedience and *roll* whose eunuch priests wear tall hats and *roll* help the poor but *roll* are jealous bigots and *roll* don't like meat-eating.

Ok I'm done.

 

[goatunit]

Shackled City preceded it, even if you only include D&D and something more than the short series that already existed.

I stand corrected. I was referring to the use of the term "Adventure Path" more than claims of what earlier modules might retroactively qualify, but it appears even then I was mistaken. Wikipedia says the first recorded use was for the Sunless Citadel and following modules.

 

[77IM]

A published adventure inevitably is going to pose some sort of challenge or situation for the players to confront (via their PCs). If the players aren't interested in this, then there will be a problem. But that applies equally to a sandbox module.

If I turn up with (say) the City of Greyhawk boxed set, and my players want to play a pirate game rather than a city game, there will be a problem. The fact that the adventure setting is a sandbox doesn't change that.

I don't see how this is any different from dealing with the fallen paladin. "You don't want to confront the fallen paladin, but rather want to overthrow the king? Then you'll either have to suffer improvisation or wait til next week."

It's different in the form of the constraints -- but you are absolutely right, there are constraints either way.

A sandbox adventure is bounded by space, an event-based adventure is bounded by time, and a goal-based adventure is bounded by a general direction. A good adventure path mixes various constraints. I think people cry "railroad" when a module has too many constraints, or when the players feel them too clearly.

People somehow think that a sandbox is the opposite, with no boundaries, but that's not the case. If the players can literally go anywhere and do anything, then that's not a sandbox, that is a campaign setting plus a DM who's really good at improvising. A module is defined by what it is, but also by what it is not, so you have to put the boundaries somewhere.

 

[Zak S]

Y'know, it's easy to get lost in abstractions without an example on the table everyone has access to.

Here's a sandbox:

http://save.vs.totalpartykill.ca/grab-bag/hexenbracken/

As you can see--it's wide open on the one hand--on the other hand, it's so big that the descriptions are vague. Which means the GM has to create a lot of information on the spot if the players go somewhere. There's no imposed plot, but the GM can begin to shape events toward future events or characters if the (player-fueled) exploration sparks off ideas.

That's a sandbox.

 

[pemerton]

A sandbox adventure is bounded by space

Not only space. By premise/theme/trope - eg contrast Isle of Dread to Castle Greyhawk to the old ICE module Moria. One gives you a lost world to explore, one a fantasy city, one a dwarven stronghold.

This is why I think the constraints on a sandbox, and on an adventure that involves (say) a fallen paladin or a demon in the apple grove are not that different. If a GM is buying a module, s/he wants to be confident that its premise/theme/trope is something that the players will enjoy.

an event-based adventure is bounded by time

I think an event-based adventure is almost guaranteed to be a railroad unless the number of events is kept to a small number of tightly-connected happenings (intro, foreshadowing, crunch).

 

[SirAntoine]

It's different in the form of the constraints -- but you are absolutely right, there are constraints either way.

A sandbox adventure is bounded by space, an event-based adventure is bounded by time, and a goal-based adventure is bounded by a general direction. A good adventure path mixes various constraints. I think people cry "railroad" when a module has too many constraints, or when the players feel them too clearly.

People somehow think that a sandbox is the opposite, with no boundaries, but that's not the case. If the players can literally go anywhere and do anything, then that's not a sandbox, that is a campaign setting plus a DM who's really good at improvising. A module is defined by what it is, but also by what it is not, so you have to put the boundaries somewhere.

The setting is the adventure in a sandbox.