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?

 

[Lanefan]

I think what @Ovinomancer is not understanding is that the DM has a fiction, which includes the world he has created or is using, and the players have a fiction, which is their characters, including background. They get together and share those fictions together to create a shared imagined space and greater story as a group activity. There are three fictions going on, only one of which is shared.

OK. I see it slightly differently but in general we're saying the same thing I think.

I see it as all one fiction, only parts of which are shared (more like a Venn diagram perhaps); with different parts of that fiction being shared among different people e.g. each player might have in-fiction secrets shared only with the GM and-or another player. The two by-far-biggest bits are the shared-among-all segment (what happens in play) and the GM-only segment (unrevealed-as-yet lore and backstory).

 

[Maxperson]

OK. I see it slightly differently but in general we're saying the same thing I think.

I see it as all one fiction, only parts of which are shared (more like a Venn diagram perhaps); with different parts of that fiction being shared among different people e.g. each player might have in-fiction secrets shared only with the GM and-or another player. The two by-far-biggest bits are the shared-among-all segment (what happens in play) and the GM-only segment (unrevealed-as-yet lore and backstory).

The reason I see them as separate is that if I lose my group, I still have the world and can go plug another group into it, so it seems like a separate fiction to me. Same as a player. If the campaign dies, I can take that PC and all of his experiences and a DM can plug me into his world and I can usually bring it all with me. There may need to be some sort of story where I plane travel or portal to the new world, but it can be done. So the PC seems like a separate fiction. Then we blend those together into the greater shared fiction.

 

[iserith]

They only make sense in relation to a good reason why the wandering monster is in the area to start with. If there is a gnoll lair in the hills nearby then it makes sense that there be a chance of encountering their patrols.

That said, my preference is not to have random wandering monsters. Mainly because all this does is move an arbitrary line slightly. After all the DM has still chosen exactly which monsters are in the table and the chance of them being met. It’s an illusion to think that the DM isn’t in control of these things.

The players don’t know the difference, it’s just a way of making things interesting for a DM.

So as long as the DM has some say in how things are procedurally generated, then they are more "real?"

 

[Xetheral]

It’s a similar reason to the reason that I never really got on with the computer game No Mans Sky. When you realize that something is procedurally generated and essentially random, it loses significance. If what is over the hill is meaningless and the next hill is too, what’s the point of exploring.

This post made me notice a potential inconsistency in what I consider significant/immersive.

On the one hand, when a DM is making concrete decisions regarding the content of the game world, it doesn't matter to me whether those decisions are made in advance or on the fly, so long as the DM's skills are up to the challenge of maintaining consistency and verisimilitude.

By contrast, and somewhat perplexingly to me, it does matter quite a bit to me when random generation is invoked. I'm totally fine with a DM using random tables ahead of time as a tool to populate their world (at least assuming the tables give believable results) but using random encounter tables on the fly (let alone rolling for terrain type each time a new hex is entered) can decrease immersiveness for me.

Then again, a DM deciding on the fly to resolve a question about the state of the game world with a random check is totally fine with me. (e.g. "You mentioned a large pile of broken household items in the corner. Does that happen to include a broken broom?" "It might, let's call it a 50/50 chance." <rolls>)

I'll have to give some more thought regarding why I am agnostic about timing with deliberate generation, but it matters to me for random generation. I'm guessing it has to do with the timing of the random generarion affecting the DM's ability to review the results for consistency with other random results, but I'm going to think about it.

 

[Maxperson]

They only make sense in relation to a good reason why the wandering monster is in the area to start with. If there is a gnoll lair in the hills nearby then it makes sense that there be a chance of encountering their patrols.

That said, my preference is not to have random wandering monsters. Mainly because all this does is move an arbitrary line slightly. After all the DM has still chosen exactly which monsters are in the table and the chance of them being met. It’s an illusion to think that the DM isn’t in control of these things.

If the DM is doing his job, though, the forest encounter chart is going to have forest gnomes, elves, etc. on it, not desert nomads. It's not going to be arbitrary and will make sense like the gnolls above. You are going to encounter things that wander around the forests.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think what @Ovinomancer is not understanding is that the DM has a fiction, which includes the world he has created or is using, and the players have a fiction, which is their characters, including background. They get together and share those fictions together to create a shared imagined space and greater story as a group activity. There are three fictions going on, only one of which is shared.

Nope. I understand exactly what you're tying to say, I'm just pointing out the inconsistency. Whatever your personal "fiction" is, it's completely malleable right up until it's introduced into the game fiction, at which point it becomes actionable. Prior to that, it's just some notes, however much you're personally in love with it. The idea that there's some form of permanence to notes not shared is baffling. I mean, by this logic, I've written several novels because I've imagined a good bit of them.

This is even somewhat obvious to you, because you had to invent a special case where the GM had promised the players that all things were pre-written and fixed and would never change to argue that the notes can't be changed.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Nope. I understand exactly what you're tying to say, I'm just pointing out the inconsistency. Whatever your personal "fiction" is, it's completely malleable right up until it's introduced into the game fiction, at which point it becomes actionable. Prior to that, it's just some notes, however much you're personally in love with it. The idea that there's some form of permanence to notes not shared is baffling.

While, of course, the note can be changed if they haven't been presented, there are important nuances to consider.

I don't write down everything that I say over the course of a game session. Sure, I might think that the players have never been to Bumbleton, so I can put whatever I want in Bumbleton. But I might have forgotten that Irrelevant NPC #38 made some small talk about Bumbleton several sessions ago that the players remembered. When they encounter a Bumbleton very different to that described by 38, they either notice that the fiction is changing or they start developing elaborate theories about 38's deception. Meanwhile, I've forgotten 38's existence, and the player is going to end up confused and frustrated why I set that all up with no payoff.

If you have a firm idea of how things work; who's who; and what's where in your campaign, you play things consistently. This is especially important if your campaigns have a lot of intrigue and mystery and the like. I do need to know what's over the hill from the beginning, because otherwise the subtle hints I forgot I dropped last year confuse and infuriate my players.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I have a persistent fantasy about creating the "perfect" sandbox game.

It would have a map, towns, dungeons, and threats that have CR's and roles filled in, but nothing more specific. For example, there might be a zone like this:

SPOOKY FOREST

Random encounters:
Sneaky hunters CR 1/2 - 1
Big predators CR 3
Evil shadow creatures CR 1 - 2

Dungeon:
Use map 5
Has Level 2 treasures

Town:
Logging town that worships local gods. Secret cult worshipping an evil fiend / fey / undead.

NPCs:
Corrupt logging company owner
Master hunter
Religious fanatic
Struggling cleric

And so on. Then, when the characters enter the zone, I fill in the details based on character backgrounds / ideals / bonds / flaws.

 

[Xetheral]

Nope. I understand exactly what you're tying to say, I'm just pointing out the inconsistency. Whatever your personal "fiction" is, it's completely malleable right up until it's introduced into the game fiction, at which point it becomes actionable. Prior to that, it's just some notes, however much you're personally in love with it. The idea that there's some form of permanence to notes not shared is baffling. I mean, by this logic, I've written several novels because I've imagined a good bit of them.

This is even somewhat obvious to you, because you had to invent a special case where the GM had promised the players that all things were pre-written and fixed and would never change to argue that the notes can't be changed.

I'm with you in terms of personally defining the scope of play to be limited to what happens at the table, and thus that anything not established doesn't exist yet in the game world. But I think it's pretty clear that @Maxperson, @Emerikol, @Lanefan, and others are defining the scope of play more broadly than we do, to include content previously authored but not yet presented. I don't think there are any grounds to say that one definition is superior to, or more useful than, the other.

 

[Oofta]

Sure is. Just be consistent with what's already present - don't, for example, plonk a mountain just over that hill that the PCs could in theory have seen this morning from miles away.

Unless of course it's a mysterious mountain that only appears when all the planets are aligned.