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?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Even allowing for the context of Gygax's advice, I don't see any reason to prioritise the game above the campaign.

And even in a game with rotating cast, which I’ve played in and enjoyed but get bored trying to run, the game is better when the PCs are prioritized over the world.

 

[pemerton]

And even in a game with rotating cast, which I’ve played in and enjoyed but get bored trying to run, the game is better when the PCs are prioritized over the world.

I think when Gygax prioritises the campaign over the participants - which on its face I agree looks terrible! - he must mean the campaign as a whole over any particular participant. So I wouldn't see it as world over players but the overall collective project which is intended to serve the interests of many participants over the immediate desires of any one participant.

I think this must always have been a minority approach to D&D play, and frankly an extreme minority approach. The hundreds of thousands of people who played using Moldvay Basic and then AD&D in the 80s, and the hundreds of thousands playing today using 5e, were not taking part in club-style games with stable settings and rotating casts of players and PCs. They were, and are, predominantly playing in small(-ish) groups of friends, from campaign to campaign with some continuity of characters and perhaps some continuity of broad maps/geography but nothing like the intersecting hex-crawling, dungeon-crawling and politicking in the fashion that Gygax seems to envision (but never fully explain).

 

[Maxperson]

I think when Gygax prioritises the campaign over the participants - which on its face I agree looks terrible! - he must mean the campaign as a whole over any particular participant. So I wouldn't see it as world over players but the overall collective project which is intended to serve the interests of many participants over the immediate desires of any one participant.

That's how I read that particular portion of it. The shared fiction is most important, the DM's fiction(game world/setting) is second, and the players' fictions(characters) are third. That makes sense given the amount of prep Gygax assumes for the game.

 

[pemerton]

That's how I read that particular portion of it. The shared fiction is most important, the DM's fiction(game world/setting) is second, and the players' fictions(characters) are third. That makes sense given the amount of prep Gygax assumes for the game.

Just to be clear: what you say here is quite different from what I said. We are not reading it the same. I don't think Gygax really has much concern for the fiction as a discrete thing at all!

 

[Jack Daniel]

Oh get off your high horse. No one is impressed.

…he said, from atop his high horse.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think when Gygax prioritises the campaign over the participants - which on its face I agree looks terrible! - he must mean the campaign as a whole over any particular participant. So I wouldn't see it as world over players but the overall collective project which is intended to serve the interests of many participants over the immediate desires of any one participant.

I think this must always have been a minority approach to D&D play, and frankly an extreme minority approach. The hundreds of thousands of people who played using Moldvay Basic and then AD&D in the 80s, and the hundreds of thousands playing today using 5e, were not taking part in club-style games with stable settings and rotating casts of players and PCs. They were, and are, predominantly playing in small(-ish) groups of friends, from campaign to campaign with some continuity of characters and perhaps some continuity of broad maps/geography but nothing like the intersecting hex-crawling, dungeon-crawling and politicking in the fashion that Gygax seems to envision (but never fully explain).

That may be, but what the advise communicates is that the DM’s ideas are more important, and must dominate the ideas of the PCs. That is straight up bad advise. Even in a Westmarches style campaign, the PCs, or more accurately the ideas of the players, should be what drives the world. Otherwise, might as well just play an MMO.

And I don’t really have any desire to give him the benefit of the doubt, necessarily. I mean, any more than any other writer.

 

[S'mon]

That may be, but what the advise communicates is that the DM’s ideas are more important, and must dominate the ideas of the PCs.

You keep adding in words like 'DM's story' and 'DM's ideas' which are not there and are completely alien to Gygaxian play.

Here's excerpts from Territory Development by Player Characters DMG page 94 which gives a flavour of his actual approach:

Assume that the player in question decides that he will set up a stronghold
about 100 miles from a border town, choosing an area of wooded hills as the
general site. He then asks you if there is a place where he can build a small
concentric castle on a high bluff overlooking a river. Unless this is totally foreign
to the area, you inform him that he can do so. You give him a map of the hex
where the location is, and of the six surrounding hexes. The player character
and his henchmen and various retainers must now go to the construction site,
explore and map it, and have construction commence.
...
Going back to the construction of the stronghold, when the player elects to
build he or she must be required to furnish you with a duplicate set of plans of
the castle grounds, its dungeons, and interiors as well. At the same time you
can give the player a free hand in drawing a small scale map of the area
immediately around his or her stronghold — say, on a 1 hex to 30 yards basis,
so about a one-half mile area hex can be depicted on a normal sheet of small
hex paper, and a bit beyond shown as needed. With your copy of this map
you can plan sieges or other attacks as they occur.
If for any reason a player who has developed territory gives up the campaign,
or simply drops the character in favor of another, you can then take over these
areas and run them as you like to benefit your campaign. In all respects, then,
development of territory by player characters is a highly desirable aspect of the
campaign. It gives added purpose to play, and provides long periods where the
player can be actively involved in the actual direction of the campaign milieu,
which will eventually benefit things regardless of what transpires at a later date.

 

[the_redbeard]

That may be, but what the advise communicates is that the DM’s ideas are more important, and must dominate the ideas of the PCs.

... dominate the ideas of the players? what?
They certainly aren't able to have narrative control over the world itself, beyond the powers of their characters.
I don't understand your interpretation.

That is straight up bad advise. Even in a Westmarches style campaign, the PCs, or more accurately the ideas of the players, should be what drives the world. Otherwise, might as well just play an MMO.

In a way, one DM running a community of players in the same world (ie, how Gary ran bitd) is not unlike an MMO in some ways. There is a common world that is shared and it should work the same for all players. That's a lot of what I get out of the original quote.

However, unlike an MMO I don't see that precluding the player characters making an impact in the world, as long as it is within the logic of the world. The DM is free to improvise how the world reacts instead of sticking with the programmed response. That's why D&D will always be the better experience for me.

 

[pemerton]

They certainly aren't able to have narrative control over the world itself, beyond the powers of their characters.

This isn't true: look at the extract quoted by @S'mon, where the player gets to specify details of the terrain provided they're not alien to what the GM has already established.

For Gygax, hidden maps are about challenges to skilled play, not the creative integrity of the GM's ideas. That's not to say that integrity is unimportant, but it shows up in completely different places like the guidelines on admitting novel magic item's into one's campaign. His focus really is quite resolutely on game play in my view, though the play he focuses on is not typical of most D&D play since the game became popular.

 

[the_redbeard]

This isn't true: look at the extract quoted by @S'mon, where the player gets to specify details of the terrain provided they're not alien to what the GM has already established.

Yeah, he posted that while I was writing. I'd forgotten about that passage. However, I think a) this is a rare occurrence only available to high level characters and b) is the exception that proves the rule.
@S'mon's point about the lack of 'DM's Story' holds, though I think I disagree that the 'DM's ideas' do have very much to do with the world.

To me, the upthread preface DMG quote is about sand box world building, which is very much the DM's ideas for the initial layout of the sand. The whole point of the sandbox metaphor tho, is that the players have freedom to make a MESS inside it. That's the style I got from my reading of the books and my fairly low Gygax number I got from one of the foundational campaigns I played in back in the early 80s.

For Gygax, hidden maps are about challenges to skilled play, not the creative integrity of the GM's ideas. That's not to say that integrity is unimportant, but it shows up in completely different places like the guidelines on admitting novel magic item's into one's campaign.

It's been a while since I've read the 1E DMG - care to point out the those guidelines on admitting novel magic items?

His focus really is quite resolutely on game play in my view, though the play he focuses on is not typical of most D&D play since the game became popular.

This is what I was getting at when I said, "There is a common world that is shared and it should work the same for all players."