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

The PF APs remind me of Call of Cthulhu adventures in that they tell a story, print some stats, offer a couple of tips for how to GM certain portions, but it is really up to the GM to translate it into a session of gameplay. I am currently preparing for a CoC one-shot (The Dead Light by Alan Bligh) and I have been making a kind of flow chart out of the module text. You certainly cannot crack open one of these for the first time an hour or two before the session, unless you don't think your players will get far at all.

pemerton said:

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What is the issue with the Paizo APs? Is there anything distinctive about them that makes it hard to extract the information you are looking for as a GM?

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They're very verbose and often seem written more for reading than playing. A random
NPC who appears and likely dies in her first fight with the PCs will often get a page of background notes
about her tragic past. Also maps are done more for beauty than ease of use.
The Rise of the Runelords hardback seems a lot better than most though - I think it got a
lot of editing prior to reissue.

Reynard said:

I asked this question on Paizo's boards once and the answer I got from James Jacobs was that APs sell a lot to folks who only read them so they are built to be read like prose not necessarily used as is at the table.

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S'mon said:

They're very verbose and often seem written more for reading than playing.

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Thanks for the replies.

I think written for reading rather than play is a widespread issue in RPG material, but it sounds like the Paizo APs have a particularly bad case of it.

pemerton said:

I think written for reading rather than play is a widespread issue in RPG material, but it sounds like the Paizo APs have a particularly bad case of it.

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The amusing part is that 5e is certainly written for reading, but at the same time, it actually gets the rule system across very well. More thought could certainly be put into creating adventures that reads and runs well.

Blackbrrd said:

The amusing part is that 5e is certainly written for reading, but at the same time, it actually gets the rule system across very well. More thought could certainly be put into creating adventures that reads and runs well.

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I had a good time playing the first two chapters of Lost Mine of Phandelver, but when I came to GM it I found the presentation was poor, especially in the Phandalin section. It was very hard to get a good idea of who all the NPCs were, their quests etc. I suspect the absence of stats is a factor there, but really they needed a list of them each with a short descriptive paragraph. These are characters who will be interacted with extensively, they need to be detailed. It is the opposite problem from Paizo's tendency to give random goon #5 a page of backstory.

S'mon said:

I had a good time playing the first two chapters of Lost Mine of Phandelver, but when I came to GM it I found the presentation was poor, especially in the Phandalin section. It was very hard to get a good idea of who all the NPCs were, their quests etc. I suspect the absence of stats is a factor there, but really they needed a list of them each with a short descriptive paragraph. These are characters who will be interacted with extensively, they need to be detailed. It is the opposite problem from Paizo's tendency to give random goon #5 a page of backstory.

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I think this could have been fixed with a map with 2-3 line callouts. It's awkward having to flip back and forth between the map key and the map. Otherwise, I think they did an ok job of it. All the NPCs are basically described in 2-3 pages of text.

S'mon said:

(. . .) in the Phandalin section. It was very hard to get a good idea of who all the NPCs were, their quests etc.

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It was a bit of a jumble. I truncated the adventure for our group by leaving out the ruins and chopping the mines down to about half their size. Someone on these boards also came up with some plot hook cards that helped our group keep the NPCs and leads straight.

I know this not exactly OT, but:

Running LMoP for my group I planned to switch to Episode 5 of HotDQ. Now Princes of the Apocalypse looks really interesting, as we enjoy the sandboxy style of the Starter Set-Adventure immensely. Coming from Pathfinder (APs and RPG) the change of campaign structure from "string to hex“ is somewhat relieving.

So players and DM really enjoy the small sandbox, but we have a relatively large group of 7+1 and therefore don’t come together completely very often. We have some "core players“ and some sporadic ones. That is okay, but even after 11 sessions the character levels drift apart.

I really like the idea of XP, but leveling after certain milestones worked far better for our group in the more or less linear structure of the Pathfinder
APs. Now we adventure in a sandbox and I find it very difficult to make out the proper milestones, because IMHO there should be places that are too dangerous for rookies.

For example (LMoP-spoilers ahead): The party dealt with most of the Spider’s Web encounter areas and know the location of Wave Eco Cave. They haven’t been to Conyberry, Old Owl Well and Wyvern Tor yet.

One PC is lvl 4 all the others are lvl 3. Half of them right at the beginning of the level. The module advises Wave Eco Cave for a party of lvl 4.

It might work this time, if enough players show up, but on the long run I sense a disturbance in the force...

I just don’t want to give up the sandbox because of our gaming group composition as we all like this hexy thing so much!

My group (I'm the DM) of 5 PCs hit Wave Echo Cave at level 3, and they did fine, leveling to 4 within a few encounters. They are a tactically savvy bunch, but I think any group that plays it safe (i.e. takes plenty of rests) should be OK. With 7 party members, your group will probably devastate, even at level 3.

A nice thing about Bounded Accuracy is that it reduces the disparity between party members of different levels, which is ideal for sandboxy campaigns where character levels diverge over time. Read one of the "ES@1" threads for more about this. There are dozens of simple house rules to help keep the PCs similar level, but I wouldn't implement any of them until level disparity became an actual problem at the table.

Thank you 77IM! We play next saturday and the part is very close to Wave Eco Cave at the Place of the Unicorn to lift a curse from the wizard who has been bitten by a wererat prostitute in the Moonstone Mask back in Neverwinter. There will be 4-5 players (only the fighter is lvl 4). We will see wether they decide to enter the Cave.

I will just follow your advice and put Bounded Accuracy to the test. If we switch to PotA I guess it will be the other way around, as most encounters will be easier at the beginning for a group that just left Wave Eco Cave (alive).