D&D 5E How do players know they are in the "wrong" location in a sandbox campaign?

I am preparing Princes of the Apocalypse as the very first 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign for a group of players experienced in previous editions (mostly 4E for the last years). PotA is designed as a sandbox campaign, players are allowed to go anywhere they want. But the dungeons have a specific level order, which isn't shown to the players. So level 3 players could decide to go the level 3 dungeon first, or they could go to the level 6 dungeon first, and from there directly descend into the level 9 dungeon. Even with the bounded accuracy of 5E that isn't likely to go well. I've read some advice to just transform the adventure into a linear one, but that appears somewhat heavy-handed.

So I was wondering how the DMs who ran PotA as a sandbox managed to let their players know if they had for some reason gone into a not level-appropriate region without just killing them all. I'm all for players making choices, but they have to be meaningful choices, and if the players simply get no clues at all as to the "supposed" order of the dungeons they can't make a meaningful choice to tackle a harder dungeon. Any choice they would make would just be random chance.

I say let them. Make sure they know that they can go anywhere and the not all encounters will be scaled down to their level. That way, if a fight seems over their head they will hopefully retreat. I would also seed rumours for the players to follow up on. That way you can seed rumours of the lower level dungeons, perhaps they are closer to the PCs starting location, leading to the PCs tackling them first before moving on to the next ones.

My players recently went into a high level area in my 3.5 pirate campaign. They knew they were too low level when one animated statue kicked the cr@p out of them.

The "getting kicked the cr@p out of them" part is the one I want to avoid. For me it is a question of player agency: If the players *choose* hard, then hard is okay. If the players chose between "left or right?" with no additional information, it isn't okay if left is much harder than right. I'm not a sadist DM.

Tobold said:

The "getting kicked the cr@p out of them" part is the one I want to avoid. For me it is a question of player agency: If the players *choose* hard, then hard is okay. If the players chose between "left or right?" with no additional information, it isn't okay if left is much harder than right. I'm not a sadist DM.

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Then you might not want to run a sandbox.

Sandbox play includes:

a) the opportunity to make choices - lots and lots and lots of choices
b) the chance...or likelihood...of some of those choices leading directly into extreme danger
c) at least one opportunity (usually) to retreat or flee from said danger once realized
d) a severe butt-kicking or even a TPK if advance is chosen over retreat

And if it takes your players two or three entire parties worth of characters to learn that retreat is not just a valid option but sometimes an essential one then so be it. And that has nothing to do with player agency. In a true sandbox players have loads of agency, in fact; but there's risk attached and yes they can very easily choose the 'hard' option by mistake. What you as DM need to make sure of is that there's always that one choice-point after the danger is recognized where a well-orchestrated retreat or withdrawal has a reasonable chance of success. After that, I'll just quote Darth Sidious: "Wipe them out. All of them."

Lanefan

Yeah, that's why a wide level range and a sandbox don't really work.

I think we differ on our definition of "choice". For me a choice between different options without having any information about the consequences is not a choice at all. It is an illusion of choice. The adventure doesn't tell the players anything about the relative difficulty of the 4 starting dungeons, so how are they supposed to make a meaningful choice?

As [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] mentions, part of being in a sandbox is the ability to make poor choices. But one of the chief things that makes for a good sandbox is the ability to make informed choices and avoid the dangerous areas.

Yes, occasionally characters learn this by going into an area and getting whomped by whatever lives there and fleeing... The trick is that they need to be able to flee. "Turn left and get killed by a Red Dragon, no save" doesn't make for good adventuring.

Princes of the Apocalypse has a problem in that the characters can be following the story and end up in very dangerous areas, which make perfect sense for them to be in as they follow the clues. This is a problem. The solution is, as the DM, to throw the option of numerous side-quests at them. (There are several in the PotA book, but you'll probably want to invent more).

Yes, they're able to go to the Wind Temple, but if there's immediate trouble in other locations, then they can be distracted away from the area which they can't handle yet.

So: provide side-quests for the players to go on, and make them want to go on them. That way, the characters can gain enough levels to properly deal with the dangerous areas.

Cheers!

Tobold said:

I think we differ on our definition of "choice". For me a choice between different options without having any information about the consequences is not a choice at all. It is an illusion of choice. The adventure doesn't tell the players anything about the relative difficulty of the 4 starting dungeons, so how are they supposed to make a meaningful choice?

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The players almost always have choice -- is there no investigation options available to tell them what sort of opposition is present at different points? High-level things typically have ripple effects on their environment. Rumours, stories, eye-witness accounts, divinatory magic, and light reconnaissance are all helpful tools to turn a blind choice into a directed one.

Use foreshadowing techniques. For example, the players might come across the tracks, territorial markings, or spoor of a dangerous beast. They could hear its screech from afar. Perhaps they even glimpse it at a safe distance.

I'm building this into the random encounter tables for the next campaign I'm planning to run. There's a roughly 2 in 3 chance that the players will run into at least one encounter on any given day (there's a chance of up to 6 encounters in a given day, but it's only 1%). However, for each encounter there's a chance (varying based on the encounter) that the players come across one of the above signs, or that they encounter the lair of a creature (meaning that they may choose to engage with it, or not, at their own discretion). These types of encounters give the players a choice as to whether or not they want to engage the encounter, rather than the classic "Rawr, a T-Rex jumps out of the nearest bush and attacks you". The sign indicates that this creature is in the area, so if the players are feeling bloodthirsty they may attempt to track it down and kill it. If they're feeling cautious, they could decide to retreat or make their way through the territory with stealth. The point is to gives them information so that they can engage with the encounter on their own terms (or not engage at all).

For example, IIRC one of the more dangerous areas in PotA contains bulettes. You might create a table to indicate whether the PCs encounter bulette signs or the actual creature or, if you're feeling generous, simply decide that the first time a bulette is rolled on the random encounter table it means that the PCs have encountered the gristly remains of the bulette's last meal and the place it burrowed back under. I recommend making it easy for the PCs to figure it out (DC under 10) or don't even have them roll for it. I don't know how experienced your player are and I haven't myself had to deal with the scenario where the players don't know what a bulette is and therefore can't gauge the threat. When I run there's always at least one veteran gamer at the table to explain these things. Therefore I don't really have any good advice for that situation; I suppose in that case I might simply give them metagame information and explain that while they're welcome to continue, and there's no guarantee that they'll run in to the bulette, if they do there is a high likelihood of death.