D&D 5E Do You Prefer Sandbox or Party Level Areas In Your Game World?

So these are two approaches that campaigns can (and do) use. They have various names, but I'm using these names. I've used both approaches in the past.

Obviously there is more nuance than the definitions below, but these are two possible extreme ends of the poll when voting feel free to choose whichever end you tend towards, or embellish in the comments.

Sandbox -- each area on the world map has a set difficulty, and if you're a low level party and wander into a dangerous area, you're in trouble. The Shire is low level, Moria is high level. Those are 'absolute' values and aren't dependent on who's traveling through.

Party -- adventurers encounter challenges appropriate to their level wherever they are on the map. A low level party in Moria just meets a few goblins. A high level party meets a balrog!

Which do you prefer?

 

[TheSword]

Sandboxes are a great idea in principle. But then DMs aren’t anywhere near as good as they think they are (including me)

DMs think they give clearly telegraphed signals to run away, but they aren’t clear at all.

DM’s think tactics can make up for extreme difficulty, but then forget that many tactics require DM license or laxity.

DM’s think that a party needs to be battered to the brink of death to feel satisfied, or to be able to mow through foes like a scythe through wheat.

The only time a sandbox works outside of dumb luck or extensive experience is across a narrow level band or where the DM heavily signposts direction with quests or clues. Or gates higher level areas behind activities that will themselves generate experience/higher levels. Rappan Athuk is a sandbox. But to get to level 13 of the dungeon you need to have passed through a shed load of other stuff.

At the end of the day a heavily directed/gated sandbox is just another form of Party Adventure.

 

[tetrasodium]

Sandboxes are a great idea in principle. But then DMs aren’t anywhere near as good as they think they are (including me)

DMs think they give clearly telegraphed signals to run away, but they aren’t clear at all.

DM’s think tactics can make up for extreme difficulty, but then forget that many tactics require DM license or laxity.

DM’s think that a party needs to be battered to the brink of death to feel satisfied, or to be able to mow through foes like a scythe through wheat.

The only time a sandbox works outside of dumb luck or extensive experience is across a narrow level band or where the DM heavily signposts direction with quests or clues. Or gates higher level areas behind activities that will themselves generate experience/higher levels. Rappan Athuk is a sandbox. But to get to level 13 of the dungeon you need to have passed through a shed load of other stuff.

At the end of the day a heavily directed/gated sandbox is just another form of Party Adventure.

That's where patrons or similar come in, I've been using them since the 3.5 days* and they work great to always have the ability for the boss (or someone working for the boss) to haul the players into a meeting or drop them a line during a rest. Plus you can always say "roll me a <whatever check>... Yea bob you think that this is someting you should run by the folks paying your bills" for emergency course correction level bad assumptions

* Yea "Patrons" as a mechanic were first published not too far back in Rising, but they were mostly all interesting organizations plus a few extra centered around politically powerful individuals that exist within eberron. In some ways they are all the benefits of a gmpc who hired the PCs because they don't want to be a gmpc & have better things or them & their staff to do to avoid the negatives.

 

[Lanefan]

The DM can telegraph in one room what's in the next room. And sounds like in this case probably should.

Personally, I quite like PotA but as a collection of independent little modules rather than one big physically-connected adventure. To that end, I'd suggest removing all the connecting passages -horizontal and vertical - and instead placing all (is it 15?) adventures as separate discrete locations within your setting. Once that's done your PCs can sandbox the hell out of it all, and if they happen to get to the final boss adventure when they're still 5th level they'd better know how to run!

 

[Lanefan]

Sandboxes are a great idea in principle. But then DMs aren’t anywhere near as good as they think they are (including me)

DMs think they give clearly telegraphed signals to run away, but they aren’t clear at all.

Oh, I dunno - the first-in-the-marching-order character getting one-shot killed as something easily bites its head off would, to me anyway, be a pretty clearly-telegraphed signal to GTFO...

 

[Bawylie]

Oh, I dunno - the first-in-the-marching-order character getting one-shot killed as something easily bites its head off would, to me anyway, be a pretty clearly-telegraphed signal to GTFO...

That’s why we send in tony two-heads, first.

 

[IndigoTraveler]

Why?

Cuz Nature be damn scary at times.

 

[Maxperson]

That’s why we send in tony two-heads, first.

The reason you got him is because we let him go. Every time we got to a split in the corridor he was of two minds on which way to go and we never got anywhere! Pain in the arse he was.

 

[Coroc]

Well in a world where 20th level is achievable the PCs are not unique. If an empire is like Rome then it has figured out how to survive. If the party were Romans your idea has merit as they would view it as an internal Roman power struggle. But if the party are outsiders, which was my assumption in the example, then they would be viewed as a grave threat. The empire would assemble their own 20th level forces and go after the party. Having the resources of an empire at their disposal they likely can keep fighting longer than most would. Could the PCs just disappear and go into hiding? Sure. They are 20th level and have all the means of hiding available. Could they slug it out in a fair fight long term? Probably not. At least not if that empire at at its peak and not on the verge of collapse.

Oh, but who is organizing the war of an empire vs the PCs? Surely the emperor was not unprotected, and part of the resources, at least those like the CR 20 bodyguards, court wizard, high priest etc. have either surrendered or gone down with the emperor in trying to defend him.

Also this asumes that leveld/classed folks is common, which is not the precndition in every campaign. If you take 2e guidelines for class and level distribution which is a good one, since it is halfway between "every soldier is at least level 3 and his general level 9 plus the village cleric has tobe level 9 at least etc." and "The pcs are the only lonely heroes with something like levels" then it goes like :

About 1 in 100 is a paladin (derived from the standard creation method back then which made it hard to roll the min stats for that class but still a reasonable idea, since not everyone and his mother is a holy man)

With levels it goes like (dunno if iam exact here) : A city of 50000 is guaranteed to have a 9th level cleric
But also: The high priest of a temple does not need to be the cleric with most levels, but often is the most faithful, (a quite stunning and diverse approach for that time)

For the ruler it says: if you want to make a ruler (which is a commoner wit h1d6 hp) a bit tougher, you can give him an extra hd, so he is not easily killled by a lucky dagger attack.

Fascinating isn't it? It also works - even if transponded to 5e wit hsome number crunching. And those ppl who love their PCs having all freedoms should eventualy have some chance to kill (and eventually replace) an emperor, at least at level 20 don't you think?

 

[turnip_farmer]

You can literally walk from an armory in a dungeon intended for a 5th level party into the jaws of a cr6 chimera in a dungeon intended for a level 6 party

Why would that be an issue? A 5th level party in a dungeon designed for 6th-level would be fine. A chimaera isn't really a meaningful threat to a 5th level party.

 

[Emerikol]

No, instead what I'm talking about is getting to the underlying reasons for preferences, because the ones usually given are hogwash.

This is the issue. No. I do not think that an improv DM can produce the deep and immersive world that I do. I don't believe it for a second. That is the issue here. I'm not conceding this point and we will just have to agree to disagree. You speak in theoreticals but you have admitted that I should be aware it's improv and run with it. Being aware it's improve prima facie will reduce the immersion. There is nothing over the hill. Nothing. I have to run over the hill to make it come into existence. That violated immersion right there. Full stop.

So you are not the arbiter of what is immersive or not. I am not immersed by improv. Let's just agree instead that for some people they can become immersed with different stimuli. If I know certain that the DM is making it up as we go, I will not care a whit about the world. My investment will be nil. In fact, once I figure out what is going on, I will politely bow out of that campaign.

So it is the CERTAINTY you exhibit about these matters that is triggering. You turn an opinion into a scientific fact. Your opinion is yours. It's not a scientific fact. I'm not unique in finding your improv anti-immersive. I'm not claiming my way is the exclusive way but I am say for a lot of people, things like immersion matter in the way they matter to me. It's why they keep using the term. Immersion is a pretty subjective concept.