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?

 

[Mort]

I write it up solo, not as some sort of shared experience. I then bring my already created fiction to the table and introduce it into the shared fiction.

But it is still of events that have already happened - that's the key difference.

Same with this. I don't sit at the table and work out what happens in the game world with the players. It's not at all a shared experience. There is no shared fiction until I bring the already created fiction into the shared experience.

Again the events have already happened so whether they are shared with the players isn't actually relevant - they are history of the world.

No. They are not possibilities. They are game world fact. They are possible shared experiences, but they are also real world created fiction.

No they are possibilities because if they players have not encountered them yet, they are things that might happen, not things that have happened. Something may very well happen, in game, to make the things written in your notes have to change.

Edit:
For example: you write that NPC villain Y is at place X. But the PCs encounter Y at place B (before they ever get to place X but after you did your notes) and, unexpectedly, kill him. Barring some kind of resurrection magic Y can't be at X anymore.

This is a flawed understanding of what a sandbox is. If I plan a red dragon at Mt. Fufru, it is not in flux.

Of course it is in flux. You expect the dragon to be at Mt. Fufru and write that down as your plan. But in game events may well dictate that the Dragon move from there - before the players even find out about the dragon. When the players get to Mt. Fufru - no dragon. Unless you ignore the events that happened that should have moved the dragon, and have it be there anyway. In other words you ignored the actions of your players that should have caused the dragon to move because you wanted the dragon to be there anyway. I guess what I should have said is that a sandbox is not immune from DM railroading (the two are not actually opposites).

Nor is it a railroad as I do not make the PCs ever go there. If they do, it's their choice as they have full control over their PCs agency.

But it is a railroad if the Dragon shouldn't be there because of actions the players took (or because of other game world events even) but is there anyway - because the DM wrote down the dragon and he's keeping the dragon there.

Regardless though, I regret using the term railroad - it's too loaded and it's a distraction.

The point is, In a sandbox, things change as the world changes. Whether this is improv or prep is just a matter of time and perspective.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Of course I do. I improv a lot. Probably half to 60%. I've played both with a lot of improv and without much improv(can never be 0), though, so I understand where they are coming from with regard to the more real feel.

... you're not even arguing your own opinions but rather what you imagine other peoples' opinions are?

No wonder this is such a farce -- you've no need to even have a consistent argument, you can just imagine a new line and take to that as if it's perfectly fine. It's arguing against a perpetually moving goalpost of what you imagine someone else could say.

 

[Maxperson]

... you're not even arguing your own opinions but rather what you imagine other peoples' opinions are?

Nope!

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

Folks, I am seeing a lot of snark, with emotionally loaded words that I expect folks think is "below the radar" of moderation. You are hereby warned that it is not so below as you think.

If you aren't going to speak with others respectfully, I recommend you exit the conversation.

Here's a hint - if a point does not seem well-supported to you, you don't need to respond to it. You don't, in fact, have to take time to say exactly how bad the point is. Doing so adds no new information or insight to the conversation, and doesn't make whatever constructive comments you do make stronger.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Right, then.

The argument that a game is more real because of when you imagine the content of the game doesn't hold up. I'll absolutely agree that preparation can result in a given GM creating more coherent, consistent, and deep content, but this isn't a necessary result and can be done with a number of other approaches and frameworks. The goal of the GM wanting to be more consistent isn't the same as prep being more "real", although it is similar there's a pretty big difference. For starters, not going with prep makes it real let's the GM look for techniques and tricks that solve their real issue -- a lack of ability to wing it and have it hold together well. It also let's that GM know that winging it is something they'll have to work on, because you cannot prep everything. Holding out prep as necessary for realness is hiding this issue, and one of the key reasons I'm making the argument that "real" is not the actual reason people prefer prepped games.

On the player side of this issue, it's even less about the "real" aspect, but more about other features of the game that come with prep, like the ability to engage in skilled play or a constraint on the GM just making things up that hurt the players. As someone that's played and run full improv games, the something that the GM just made something up that then screws you over gets very hard to separate from feeling like the GM did it on purpose. This is why many of the games that feature improv as the primary approach also have strong constraints on the GM so that this doesn't happen. This is harder in D&D, due to the near complete lack of restraint on the GM's game authorities, but it can be done with clear play principles and the ability to "check" the GM on how things get added. This may, indeed, be work someone's not willing to do, but that's not about "real."

 

[Maxperson]

The argument that a game is more real because of when you imagine the content of the game doesn't hold up. I'll absolutely agree that preparation can result in a given GM creating more coherent, consistent, and deep content, but this isn't a necessary result and can be done with a number of other approaches and frameworks. The goal of the GM wanting to be more consistent isn't the same as prep being more "real", although it is similar there's a pretty big difference. For starters, not going with prep makes it real let's the GM look for techniques and tricks that solve their real issue -- a lack of ability to wing it and have it hold together well. It also let's that GM know that winging it is something they'll have to work on, because you cannot prep everything. Holding out prep as necessary for realness is hiding this issue, and one of the key reasons I'm making the argument that "real" is not the actual reason people prefer prepped games.

The argument is that the game feels more real to some people when prepared in advance, not that it is more real. I have experienced that, as have others here, so it can hardly be denied. Your constant denials amount to you claiming to know better than them what they are feeling and why they are feeling that way.

 

[Lanefan]

In play, there's no noticeable difference. If anything, a good bit of my improv is better than my prep.

Hey, shoot some of that talent my way, will ya?

 

[Lanefan]

There seems to be a disconnect here.

Backstory is part of the shared fiction because it already happened.
The DMs notes of events that have already occurred in play are part of the shared fiction because they already happened.

The DMs notes of things the players have not seen are not part of the shared fiction - they have not happened and are therefore just possibilities.

Because they are possibilities, they MUST (or at the very least should) be in flux.

If they are not in flux - what you have is not a sandbox, it is a well planned out railroad.

I can't grasp how you arrive at this conclusion from these premises.

Take the real world as an example. Everything in it is what it is and where it is but you're not railroaded into doing whatever you do in this world: you have choices and options, and the options and choices you make don't validate or deny the existence of those parts of the world you don't happen to interact with.

Well, the same thing goes for the PCs in a setting, with the only - but rather huge - limitation being the DM-side practicalities of designing and then narrating a game setting to the level of detail our real world provides our senses with.

Put another way: let's say the DM is using real-world Earth as the setting, with all the adventuring taking place in either North America or the Caribbean. The PCs will never get within 3000 miles of Istanbul and may in fact never even hear of the place, but that doesn't mean Istanbul doesn't exist in the setting; ditto for Beijing or Manila or Singapore. None of this is in flux, but there's still no railroad whatsoever provided the DM allows freedom of choice for the PCs as to what they do, and how, within this setting.

 

[Lanefan]

The argument that a game is more real because of when you imagine the content of the game doesn't hold up. I'll absolutely agree that preparation can result in a given GM creating more coherent, consistent, and deep content, but this isn't a necessary result and can be done with a number of other approaches and frameworks. The goal of the GM wanting to be more consistent isn't the same as prep being more "real", although it is similar there's a pretty big difference. For starters, not going with prep makes it real let's the GM look for techniques and tricks that solve their real issue -- a lack of ability to wing it and have it hold together well. It also let's that GM know that winging it is something they'll have to work on, because you cannot prep everything.

When you put it this way, I more or less agree in principle.

Thing is, I know through experience that if I try to wing too much it doesn't hold together. I don't need everything prepped to the nines but I do need a solid enough framework to keep my wingings-it from crashing through too many backyard fences.

On the player side of this issue, it's even less about the "real" aspect, but more about other features of the game that come with prep, like the ability to engage in skilled play or a constraint on the GM just making things up that hurt the players. As someone that's played and run full improv games, the something that the GM just made something up that then screws you over gets very hard to separate from feeling like the GM did it on purpose.

IMO it's every bit as bad if the GM just made something up to help the PCs out: it still feels like the GM did it on purpose even if such is/was not the case. But this side of the coin - where the PCs unduly benefit rather than get screwed over - never gets mentioned for some reason.

 

[Mort]

I can't grasp how you arrive at this conclusion from these premises.

Take the real world as an example. Everything in it is what it is and where it is but you're not railroaded into doing whatever you do in this world: you have choices and options, and the options and choices you make don't validate or deny the existence of those parts of the world you don't happen to interact with.

Well, the same thing goes for the PCs in a setting, with the only - but rather huge - limitation being the DM-side practicalities of designing and then narrating a game setting to the level of detail our real world provides our senses with.

Put another way: let's say the DM is using real-world Earth as the setting, with all the adventuring taking place in either North America or the Caribbean. The PCs will never get within 3000 miles of Istanbul and may in fact never even hear of the place, but that doesn't mean Istanbul doesn't exist in the setting; ditto for Beijing or Manila or Singapore. None of this is in flux, but there's still no railroad whatsoever provided the DM allows freedom of choice for the PCs as to what they do, and how, within this setting.

This was further addressed in a later post - that yes, of course things are in Flux and it is odd to say otherwise. Anything the PCs haven't encountered is potential vs. real.

Say the DM preps an encounter with Admiral Higley if the PCs ever sail into a particular port in Singapore.

But let's say the DM, really wanting the players to encounter Higley, also plans an encounter with him in Malaysia or Indonesia - and in multiple ports thereof.

1. Higley is just potential until he happens;

2. If the PCs encounter him in Malaysia, it would be odd if this does not affect how they later encounter him in Singapore. Or if they encounter him at all. Let's say they shoot him in Malaysia. It would be odd, and quite surreal, if they then have an identical encounter with him when they make it to Singapore.