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?

 

[Ovinomancer]

You guys been busy over the weekend. lol. Sorry I missed out.

I think your term "the fiction" might be where there is confusion. If you mean the story of the adventures of party X then fine of course you can't argue there story includes a dragon they didn't encounter. If though, and here is where a lot of taking it, you mean the reality of your world then you are just wrong. When I prep something and put it into the world it is in the world. It doesn't matter if the players ever encounter it or not. A lot of people are seeing you challenge the latter and of course as a result you are getting pushback.

Now, being able to change something merely because the players don't know it (yet?), doesn't mean a DM will change it. The DM will not change it in fact if they are playing in our style. And when I say won't change it, I mean for that particular period of time. The world moves along so the DM will move along all the PCs over time as well. But the fact on date XYZ, said character existed and was doing something is a truth of the campaign whether the PCs ever realize it or not.

There's a mixing of two things here, and it's causing a reification of the prep. The first is that it's entirely reasonable to want to do prep, fix it, and then play it. This is cool, and, despite your misunderstanding at the end of this post, I'm down with that. The second, though, is what constitutes actually in play at the table, and prep just doesn't make it. It's an input to that play, but it isn't on the same level of that play, and this is because, regardless of however a GM prefers it, it is malleable and unfixed. If you can change your mind, you choosing not to does not change that you can. The choosing is doing no work, here, and so it cannot be the cause of prep to have the same weight as play.

So maybe we can call that campaign truth. I find I don't care for the term fiction anyway in regards to a roleplaying session.

I felt it was a less contentious term than make-believe, or fantasy, or imaginings, but if you have a better term for the entirely made up parts of play, I'm all ears.

I realize you have a style of play where you change things all the time even when you've prepped it. You have no regard for campaign truth. I accept that is how you play.

Cool, except you're wrong... on occasion. I don't stick to one approach, because I've found different approaches do different things, so I tailor my approach to what it is the table wants to get at in play. In the last few years I've run a heavy prep hex-crawl, where things were placed and discovered in play, a player-driven Planescape game where I used a lot of improv techniques with some location based prep, a Blades in the Dark game which was entirely improv (and had to be), and right now I'm running a WotC AP. So, yeah, maybe you shouldn't jump to a conclusion -- most of my recent play has been a lot closer to your approach than what you've labeled as my approach.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Perhaps, the fact the DM has experienced the "fiction" as you call it has made it real. When an author writes a book and no one has read it, the fiction exists. It's right there in the book.

The GM also experienced any brainstorming they did, but didn't keep all of that. They also experienced a good bit of drafting work on the prep, adding and subtracting things until it was good enough. So, at which point does the GM experiencing it reify it?

This is the point, there's not a thing you can actually point to that has meaning for the game until it's introduced into the shared fiction. Prior to that it is, at best, a strong guide to future content. This can be said even for a GM that prefers strong prep because they might notice, immediately before play, an error that makes things incoherent, and fix it on the fly.

Well, some GMs give themselves that option and some don't. If a GM chooses to not change the fiction as a principle then he won't change the fiction. A theoretical ability to change the fiction notwithstanding. The fiction exists as we see it when the DM decides it is a campaign truth.

You mean prep, here, by fiction? Because that's fine. The GM choosing to not change it means that it must be changeable, else there's no choice. If it's changeable, then it's not fixed until it cannot be changed, which is what happens when it enters the shared fiction. The imaginings of the GM that do not enter the shared fictions aren't "real".

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think it's worth a separate point to say that I 1000% (extra zero intentional) think that GMs doing strong prep and not changing it is both cool and satisfies a particular set of gaming needs. My argument about the fiction should not be read, in any way, as a disparagement of strong prep. I'm pointing out that the shared fiction is the only "real" part of the game -- everything else is alterable for any reason, and the choices of the GM, do not change this. It's only when it actually impacts the game fiction that it becomes, in any sense, "real." And, yes, prep can impact play in very subtle ways, but only when it enters the shared fiction with those subtleties.

Prep is also not the only way to get a vibrant, consistent, and believable worlds, including one where things happen "offstage." Nor is the only alternative approach to prep the GM just making everything up as they want in the moment. Games like Blades in the Dark and the Powered by the Apocalypse games are very much played in the moment, with prep being difficult to impossible, but the GM is tightly constrained in these games such that they cannot just negate or allow any action as they want to. And, some of these kinds of approaches can be brought into D&D (not all, because D&D isn't built to sustain them, but some). The ways you can run a skill challenge, for instance, can allow for play that cannot be prepped, but instead played out in the moment, and the results can be as good as the best prep you'd want to put it up against in terms of vibrant, "living" worlds.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm pointing out that the shared fiction is the only "real" part of the game -- everything else is alterable for any reason, and the choices of the GM, do not change this. It's only when it actually impacts the game fiction that it becomes, in any sense, "real." And, yes, prep can impact play in very subtle ways, but only when it enters the shared fiction with those subtleties.

Okay, but the advanced prep still makes the game play FEEL more real to a lot of us. It doesn't matter if the prep malleable, when the DM is not going to do it other than for a rare exception. It still makes the game play FEEL more real.

 

[Mort]

Okay, but the advanced prep still makes the game play FEEL more real to a lot of us. It doesn't matter if the prep malleable, when the DM is not going to do it other than for a rare exception. It still makes the game play FEEL more real.

While this is often true, over-prepping is also a thing and it can interfere with the play experience.

I've been in games where the DM prepped things to the point where the world clearly moved and breathed. BUT the world was so independent of the PCs that they felt like an afterthought - like pebbles thrown into a river. It was quite frustrating to realize that we the PCs mattered so little, even on a small scale.

 

[Maxperson]

While this is often true, over-prepping is also a thing and it can interfere with the play experience.

It can be if the DM forces things or doesn't allow the PCs to affect the game world, but that's more of a railroading issue than one of prepping.

I've been in games where the DM prepped things to the point where the world clearly moved and breathed. BUT the world was so independent of the PCs that they felt like an afterthought - like pebbles thrown into a river. It was quite frustrating to realize that we the PCs mattered so little, even on a small scale.

You can take two DMs, though, and give them that world. One will be the way you describe, and the other will allow the PCs to impact the world to a great degree. This is a DMing issue, not one of prep.

 

[Mort]

It can be if the DM forces things or doesn't allow the PCs to affect the game world, but that's more of a railroading issue than one of prepping.

But it wasn't railroading. The PCs were free to go where they wanted and do what they wanted.

It's just that what they did didn't really matter. That's a separate problem.

You can take two DMs, though, and give them that world. One will be the way you describe, and the other will allow the PCs to impact the world to a great degree. This is a DMing issue, not one of prep.

I agree it's a DMing issue but the DMing issue IS overprepping. The DM has prepped things so thoroughly that while the players have oodles and oodles of choices and options none of those seem to matter much because the prep extends so far as to minimize the PCs impact.

And yes, another DM could change that. But the easiest way to change that would be to reduce some of the prep. To not prep so wide and deep as to minimize the impact of the PCs. Let the actions of the PCs be processed before prepping further.

 

[Azzy]

Hard to do sandbox if you don't do a lot of prep, and I really don't prep, so party.

A man after my own heart.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One thing I am trying to work into my games after years without it is the PCs sometimes having to run from something.

So, a mix of the two.

I’ve also run games that were more “on rails”, as an aside. Never a long campaign, but I’ve done short stories where the group has a premise for why they’re a group, and are given a mission, and while there are optional side quests and the like, and plenty to explore, there is a clear, fairly linear story.

And it’s really fun for everyone.

 

[Legend07]

I find keeping it mostly party is good as it keeps the options open for both players and DM, but parts are obvioulsy sandbox (eg dragons lair). So, if the 1st level party decide to go into a dragons lair or face the undead wizard (lich), then it is up to them to say their farewells to their loved ones and make certain wills are all in order. Plus making some time to create new characters.