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?

 

[Grogg of the North]

Nothing like joining the discussion late.

I prefer the Party Method @Morrus described, so long as it makes sense. If I walk outside of a town and am immediately surrounded by a bubble of 12th level encounters, it yanks me out of the game. How do the farmers survive? You described farmlands outside the town walls, GM! Explain!

I think the best way I've heard it explained is like this:

• The farmer goes out into the woods to gather firewood. The goblins see the farmer and think "This guy has nothing worth taking." and ignore him. The farmer goes home safely.
• The low level adventurers go into the forest. The goblins think, "Yeah, lets take their stuff!" and the party has an encounter with goblins.
• The high level adventurers go into the forest. The goblins see them and think "Those guys are terrifying!" and hide. The party misses the goblins and later that day finds the lair of a green dragon.

I have, unfortunately, played in too many sandboxes where the group has wandered into a biome only to be greeted by threats beyond our abilities to deal with; often with no warning beforehand. It all feels too MMO to me. Like I wandered out of the starting area into another zone by mistake and the monsters are all one shotting me. (Oh look, a blue slime. I've never seen one of those before. What? I died?!)

I think part of the issue may be where different players and GMs draw inspiration from. If you are drawing inspiration from fiction where the heroes don't give up in the face of death; where the heroes often survive despite of the odds, and other individuals at your table are not on the same page as you that can cause problems. Communication is key regardless of the type of game you are running.

 

[Emerikol]

Nothing like joining the discussion late.

I prefer the Party Method @Morrus described, so long as it makes sense. If I walk outside of a town and am immediately surrounded by a bubble of 12th level encounters, it yanks me out of the game. How do the farmers survive? You described farmlands outside the town walls, GM! Explain!

I think the best way I've heard it explained is like this:

• The farmer goes out into the woods to gather firewood. The goblins see the farmer and think "This guy has nothing worth taking." and ignore him. The farmer goes home safely.
• The low level adventurers go into the forest. The goblins think, "Yeah, lets take their stuff!" and the party has an encounter with goblins.
• The high level adventurers go into the forest. The goblins see them and think "Those guys are terrifying!" and hide. The party misses the goblins and later that day finds the lair of a green dragon.

I have, unfortunately, played in too many sandboxes where the group has wandered into a biome only to be greeted by threats beyond our abilities to deal with; often with no warning beforehand. It all feels too MMO to me. Like I wandered out of the starting area into another zone by mistake and the monsters are all one shotting me. (Oh look, a blue slime. I've never seen one of those before. What? I died?!)

I think part of the issue may be where different players and GMs draw inspiration from. If you are drawing inspiration from fiction where the heroes don't give up in the face of death; where the heroes often survive despite of the odds, and other individuals at your table are not on the same page as you that can cause problems. Communication is key regardless of the type of game you are running.

I would agree with your criticisms but if the world is well done this is not an issue. A DM should very much be concerned as to why his farmers aren't getting killed by the goblins. If there are farmers out in their fields outside town, then this area is pretty pacified and the likelihood of even getting a wandering monster is close to nil. I am imagining a keep on the borderlands style situation where you have a fortress on the edge of the wild lands. Deep in the Empire, I am not rolling on the same wandering monster chart and the chance for a monster at all is much lower. Each hex should have identified the sort of wandering monster chart appropriate.

In fact, if 1st level adventurers are wandering in and out of town then the surroundings are not that bad. This is typically how it goes.

Area Type
Tame - The types of wandering encounters aren't really what we would call wandering monsters. Rather it's a patrol or a merchant caravan or just a traveling party. There may be some chance of bad guys but the chance is very very low.

Near Wild - This area is where civilization starts to break down and you are apt to meet something bad. Typically though you are near enough to civilization that the encounters range fairly low level. The chance for something worse is not zero but it's not big either. Roving bands of goblins or bandits, sure. A beholder? Not as likely.

Wild - This is the traditional outdoor adventure zone. Monsters up to level 5, CR 5 or whatever. This is the standard "wilderness" area. Any monster could appear given the terrain type but there is a bell curve and it's rare to go much over 5th level. You can get a dragon there though. It's not impossible and could happen.

Dungeons - To get to this level, we have to go into true dungeons. We have monsters of all levels here and of course the level fo the dungeon will dictate. So to consistently get higher level threats you have to seek it out in a dungeon. (That includes castles, caves, deep earth, etc....)

The above was pretty much the 1e approach. I have found no reason to modify it.

 

[Maxperson]

The players have zero awareness of what is over the hill. The only person who has this awareness is the GM. When the players go over the hill, they cannot tell if the dragon they discover there was imagined last year, last month, 10 minutes ago, right now, or by the random die roll the GM just made. This is not an actual distinction because, in all cases, in the fiction the dragon was over that hill prior to the players going over the hill.

This is a key issue -- fiction doesn't exist in an RPG if the GM writes it down in their notes. That's the GM's notes existing. The fiction only occurs when the players are informed and it becomes part of the story at the table. And, when that happens, it was always in the fiction. This is the nature of fiction, and has nothing to do with the timing of imagining it.

The fiction does exist when the DM writes it down. He's imagining and creating the fiction right then. It doesn't become a shared imagined fiction until the players get there, but it did exist prior.

I also think that the dragon being there in the fiction in all cases, prior to the PC going over the hill is a bit of a Red Herring. The issue here is not with the in-fiction perspective of the PCs. It's with the out of fiction perspective of the players. From that out of fiction perspective, the dragon in an improv game was not over that hill prior to the PCs going over the hill and only came into being at that moment.

Immersion is a player thing, so the in-fiction perspective of the PCs doesn't really change that. It's all about whether the player can immerse themselves in their character and the fiction, and for many people HOW the fiction comes about, improv or pre-planned, makes a major difference.

Yeah, I said that. If the GM has few constraints, like is typical in the D&D game, then removing the constraint of being expected to plan against the player in advance instead of in the moment will absolutely feel like it impinges agency, even if it does not. I've been saying this for a few posts, now. The problem here doesn't lie with improv, though, but the (lack of) constraints. You can absolutely have an entirely improved game that retains agency (and feels like it), if constraints on the GM both exist and are visible.

You can have it without such constraints, too. You just need trust in your DM.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The fiction does exist when the DM writes it down. He's imagining and creating the fiction right then. It doesn't become a shared imagined fiction until the players get there, but it did exist prior.

The GM's notes did, the game fiction did not.

I also think that the dragon being there in the fiction in all cases, prior to the PC going over the hill is a bit of a Red Herring. The issue here is not with the in-fiction perspective of the PCs. It's with the out of fiction perspective of the players. From that out of fiction perspective, the dragon in an improv game was not over that hill prior to the PCs going over the hill and only came into being at that moment.

And I'm saying that if this is an issue, it's not about when the fiction was created. I'm not saying there isn't an issue, but that it's not actually about when the fiction is created.

Immersion is a player thing, so the in-fiction perspective of the PCs doesn't really change that. It's all about whether the player can immerse themselves in their character and the fiction, and for many people HOW the fiction comes about, improv or pre-planned, makes a major difference.

Right, I've said exactly this. The difference is that I'm saying that it's not about when the fiction is written in regards to creating immersion, but other issues regarding the feel of play that coincide with fiction generation. It's about wanting skilled play against a key and having that thwarted by no key, or about agency and having that thwarted by the feeling that your actions don't matter in improv, or about something else, or about.... The thing that it isn't really about is when the fiction is created. That's just the correlation, not the causation.

You can have it without such constraints, too. You just need trust in your DM.

I'm increasingly finding this to be a pat answer that doesn't actually address the issues. I mean, trust is critical, but I also trust my GM is human, and has human failings. It's not a matter of trust if you'd like to have additional constraints, else we could just say that not liking improv approaches is just because you don't trust your GM, and that's obvious hogwash.

 

[Maxperson]

The GM's notes did, the game fiction did not.

The game fiction is what is the fiction created for the game. There is the shared fiction, and there is the fiction that the DM creates for his world when he creates it. The work he does is fictional, involves the story of the world, and fully qualifies as game fiction. The stories, lore, creatures, treasures, etc. are pre-established in that fiction. That fiction is just not shared until the players interact with it.

And I'm saying that if this is an issue, it's not about when the fiction was created. I'm not saying there isn't an issue, but that it's not actually about when the fiction is created.

And you have multiple people telling you that when the fiction is created is the issue, or at least an issue. You don't get to tell them that they are wrong

Right, I've said exactly this. The difference is that I'm saying that it's not about when the fiction is written in regards to creating immersion, but other issues regarding the feel of play that coincide with fiction generation. It's about wanting skilled play against a key and having that thwarted by no key, or about agency and having that thwarted by the feeling that your actions don't matter in improv, or about something else, or about.... The thing that it isn't really about is when the fiction is created. That's just the correlation, not the causation.

I'm sure that for some people that's true. For others when the fiction is created matters a great deal. They are not wrong. For them it is about when the fiction is created.

I'm increasingly finding this to be a pat answer that doesn't actually address the issues. I mean, trust is critical, but I also trust my GM is human, and has human failings. It's not a matter of trust if you'd like to have additional constraints,

For a lot of us, if you trust the DM then there are no issues to address. We understand that the DM is human and has human failings, but we also understand that he's doing his best to be fair and impartial. That latter understanding removes any fear we have that our agency is being impinged upon.

else we could just say that not liking improv approaches is just because you don't trust your GM, and that's obvious hogwash.

That's a pretty big Strawman. This is about agency, not about whether or not you like improv. There are lots of reasons you might or might not like improv or pre-determined settings, but the one we are discussing right now is agency.

 

[Lanefan]

I can see it as well. And, no, going over the hill is not discovering what was already there -- it doesn't actually exist until it's shared.

That statement right there is where a lot of these discussions run hard aground.

The point in a prepped-style game is that - in the minds of both the players and the DM - what's beyond the hill does already exist, and while whatever's there hasn't been seen yet by the PCs it has been seen by all sorts of other inhabitants of the setting*. Moreover, it would have continued existing even if the PCs never looked that way.

* - maybe even including some inhabitants that don't yet realize they're PCs! (in meta-terms, player-characters brought in later in the campaign that at this point haven't been rolled up yet)

 

[Oofta]

While I do a mix of sandbox and party, I'm with @Ovinomancer on this one. Until something is revealed to the players all plans are like Schrodinger's cat existing in a state of multiple possibilities. It doesn't matter until it happens, so what difference does it make if something was decided 2 months, 2 days or 2 seconds ago?

I've almost always run an improv heavy game, none of my players have ever indicated that they realize I'm doing it while they do comment now and then "how did he know we'd ____". Some people have even accused my of somehow subtly railroading.

But again, I don't know how you could do anything approaching a true sandbox and not use improv on a regular basis unless you have books of documentation.

An example. The PCs were passing through a small city while traveling from A to B. This was just supposed to be a quick stop-off point and a chance to meet with an informant so I didn't have much detailed about the town other than that it was notorious hangout for bandits and pretty lawless.

One of the PCs (a chaotic rogue) decided to see if he could make a bit of profit while in town since they were leaving in a couple of hours anyway. Well, a few bad rolls later and he had attracted attention and we had a running battle through the city. It included a burning warehouse, breaking down a wall to escape the fire into a brothel, follow-up fights and eventually a showdown with a minor boss.

There is no way I could have anticipated any of that was going to happen, it was just the logical progression of player choice and some bad rolls. It was also a blast and a thoroughly enjoyable session.

So if people say "they would know", my question is simple. How? If the DM is not stating that they improvise, is it lack of coordination? Having to look things up? Hesitating or reading notes? Because all of those happen in AL mods where we tend to run fairly close to script as well. I mean, I always do at least some prep on encounters and typically have more encounters than I need. I have name and random NPCs lists I can look up. But do I know who the bartender of the Purple Dog is? Heck no, I didn't expect anyone to stop by a tavern and the name just came from my list o' places.

TLDR: I think if you are ready to improv, people will have a hard time telling you're improving and I don't know how I would prep for a sandbox campaign without relying on improv.

 

[Oofta]

That statement right there is where a lot of these discussions run hard aground.

The point in a prepped-style game is that - in the minds of both the players and the DM - what's beyond the hill does already exist, and while whatever's there hasn't been seen yet by the PCs it has been seen by all sorts of other inhabitants of the setting*. Moreover, it would have continued existing even if the PCs never looked that way.

* - maybe even including some inhabitants that don't yet realize they're PCs! (in meta-terms, player-characters brought in later in the campaign that at this point haven't been rolled up yet)

But isn't that only if the DM tells the players that they're doing improv? What if they don't? What if the DM only has a general idea of what's over the hill?

 

[Lanefan]

But isn't that only if the DM tells the players that they're doing improv? What if they don't? What if the DM only has a general idea of what's over the hill?

Then said DM is running a hybrid style between prepped and improv....which is, in all likelihood, what most of us are more or less doing in the first place.

What matters is the mindset - the confidence, if you will, in the players' minds - that what's over the hill a) makes sense with itself and what's already been established; b) hasn't obviously just been tailored to the party's specific needs and-or the existence/needs of a specific character; and c) would be more or less the same had they got here six months ago or not got here until five years from now, just like in the real world.

That player-side confidence in the consistency of the setting is what allows them to immerse themselves within said setting, IMO.

 

[CleverNickName]

Sandbox all the way. Players should learn to flee when it is necessary.

I've been saying this for years. Retreat is always an option--sometimes it's the best (or only!) option.