D&D General Sandbox Campaigns should have a Default Action.

[Scott Christian]

In other words: your insistence on only two truths, with no nuance, makes your argument easy to dismiss. You expect everyone else to embrace nuance in defining terms they use, but refuse with your pet theory.

I do not expect nuance. I expect clarity and conciseness. The opposite of nuance. And there is no nuance to my definitions or prepped and not prepped.

Oh, I see, you think that a "sandbox" is a list of ingredients. It's a form that, yes, absolutely includes a lot of the same material a linear adventure would include. It is the method and nature of the interaction with those elements that determines where a particular campaign might exist on the "sandbox to railroad" continuum.

And it doesn't matter one whit whether some, all or none of those elements are prepped since "prep" isn't a requirement for "sandbox."

I am not equating prepped with sandbox. You did that by saying it was a mixture of the two. I have never said that. I think the definition of sandbox literally doesn't exist. I think my definitions do. That is my entire claim. A DM can run a game using their prepped materials or they can run their game using stuff they make up on the fly. Sometimes it's almost all prep, sometimes it's almost all on the fly. Player decisions determines this.

 

[Maxperson]

You are correct. That is my logic. There is no game that is all prepped. There are definitely campaigns that follow the prep a majority of the time. There are others that follow the not prepped most of the time. The stuff is mostly made up on the fly using imagination and/or tables. Both of those can be defined.

Sandboxes exist as a playstyle. No you don't need total prep for one. All it takes is a fair amount of prepared(either by you or a third party) material that the players can discover, and then the freedom for them to pick and choose what they want to do and when.

 

[Maxperson]

This thread has gotten interesting all of a sudden. A lot of folks think the second you prep, the game ceases to be a snadbox. Yet, they find the idea that games are mastered by prep or no prep to be lacking nuance. Hmm,

Prep is almost required for a sandbox. You have to prep the world for discovery. Not completely, but enough so that the players can dig and discover.

 

[Scott Christian]

More recently, though, i responded to a post that I think is more salient: sandboxes exist as a style of play completely independent of whether there is prep or not. Your argument that the existence or lack of prep somehow eliminates the playstyle makes no sense. They aren't dependent on one another, and only marginally related as you yourself have pointed out repeatedly in trying to explain the non-existence of a playstyle a huge number of people engage in.

For the record, I did not intermingle prep and sandbox or any other playstyle. My playstyles have clear and concise definitions.
There is no misunderstanding when a DM is looking at a boxed text and reading that they prepped this. Just as there is no misunderstanding when the DM makes up a description without reading.
There is no mistaking a table that has a wandering encounter at night and the DM that takes out a self-created stat block of an original monster or the DM that rolls on a random table and opens the MM to what they rolled.
There is no mistaking the DM that has the lost family member the PC has been searching for trapped in the mine already predesigned with traps or the DM that whimsically says you notice something familiar about the person sitting at the bar - it's your lost family member.

These are set pieces or made up. Both are loads of fun. But they have nothing to do with sandbox or any other playstyle, because those are all the same.

 

[fikuvino]

Outside of things like convention games, I only run sandbox campaigns. That has been true for decades now. I create the world, populate it with a lot of stuff, and turn the characters loose in it. They can pursue whatever activities they want to. I don't go for any sort of balance (running away is often a good idea), and I have NPCs and various creatures act as I think they would in the given situation, all things considered. I have no problem improvising or filling things out in more detail along the way as the players make choices about what to do.

At the beginning, though, I always seed things with a LOT of rumors, stories, gossip, etc. from NPCs. A dozen, at the very least. That may come from tavern encounters, town criers, or whatever else is appropriate. In short, I give the players a good sense of a lot of the things going on in the world around them. They can choose to investigate one of those things further, or go some other route. I don't push them in any particular direction, and adapt to their choices.

 

[John R Davis]

I use a notebook so can scribble in what is in a hex due to me rolling some stuff or PCs rolling/requesting/hinting some stuff.

I prefer the term " adventure landscape" to sandbox ( though sandbox is snappier).

Trying hard not to put in a link to one of my sandbox publications!! Interesting of all my stuff on Drivethru' the sandox one has sold the best so they are popular.
I wonder if it's just old farts like me who like them, or whether the New-gen do as well??

 

[Scott Christian]

So honest question. After reading many people's version of sandbox, what if someone were to buy a bunch of adventure paths, create a hub, seed all the rumors for the adventure paths, and then, turn their players' characters loose in in said hub. Then, whatever the players chose they could follow. Sometimes it might lead to following a caravan that is a dragon cult, and other times it might led to the cold and desolate Ten Towns, and still others might lead to a school of magic. Is that sandbox?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And I think what you are typing is, in part, my point. What we call sandbox is still linear. Most of the time it's a railroad. Your above example about the strange lights just leaving the plot arc happens all the time in railroading too.

now in my experence it can happen but most things we call railroads would find a way to FORCE the players to investigate the strange lights.

First, I like all of these!

thanks... but in serious it is the biggest complaint I get "man you have some great plot hooks and we can't decide what one to do"

choice paralysis is a thing

You have ten different questlines in one or two play sessions. It seems open, but again, to me, no more open than a regular linear adventure.

if you just look at it in a vacuum, 10 quests listed in order (like in my notes) yeah I can see that. But when we roleplay through it and you hear about things you MIGHT be interested in and then I focus in on what you show interest in it doesn't normally.

imagine you come into town and immediately find out something... it isn;'t a quest yet although it may be the beginning of a hook. You show no interest, so while rping you find out about the town and decide to do something I did not prep for (boy does that happen more often then I like) and we end up going somewhere or to do something I didn't prep. the next town you ignore 2 or 3 things and pick up on the 4th... the story isn't something I made BEFORE the campaign started, but at game 7 I am tying the things you did togather and having the world react... the story still flows...

what also helps is I always have tons of notes about all the places. not detailed until I am sure they are heading there, but rough outlines.

So this group goes back to town and takes on the tryst between the guard's daughter and thieves' guild. Ok. I assume, if they told the DM this the session before they played it out, the DM is going to prep. Maybe have her sneak away and they have to recover? Draw up some of the thieves' guild houses she might be in? Stat block some of the thieves? Maybe prepare a scene where they do find her with her lover as they are getting married on a pirate ship? Whatever it may be, there is some planning. And that runs linearly.

excuse me as I laugh... not at you but so I don't cry with what I am about to tell you...

most likely the way this would run at my game is we talk between the end of game 7 and in between game 7 and 8 and I am working 100% on the thieves guild... I draw up a map, or some stats (assuming I didn't have them already incase they did it game 6 when they took a different lead) my player then go off on some tangent... maybe they forget they are looking for her, maybe they decided to switch to giving the crazy kids a chance... or maybe they just get distracted because that one house has a red roof.

THAT is why I doubt anyone would describe my games as linar... because I can give some guesses but I never know for sure what is going to happen until we get to game. My hours of prep are all so I have things when they go left.

If you insist that the DM makes it all up on the fly. Great. But, I definitely don't think that definition should be sandbox, more like impromptu playing.

yeah that sounds like a better term

 

[Reynard]

So honest question. After reading many people's version of sandbox, what if someone were to buy a bunch of adventure paths, create a hub, seed all the rumors for the adventure paths, and then, turn their players' characters loose in in said hub. Then, whatever the players chose they could follow. Sometimes it might lead to following a caravan that is a dragon cult, and other times it might led to the cold and desolate Ten Towns, and still others might lead to a school of magic. Is that sandbox?

That depends: are the players truly free to decide which threads they pull at, and free to decide to abandon any quest they begin? if so -- yes, it is a sandbox. If not, it is a theme park.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It is a combination of prepped NPCs, locations, groups, settlements, conflicts, maybe a vague possible future timeline of events in the setting (events like we would have in our own world), improv, extrapolation on existing material, chemistry between what the players choose to do and how the NPCs, monsters and other forces react to that. This isn't an either or situation. Sandboxes involve a lot of different elements to bring them to life.

There is a huge excluded middle in your argument. How rehearsed can it be if I have no idea what is going to happen, yet how can it be only described as improv if I also have prepared materials?

my go to is "if my players did nothing but sit in there and watch me tell the story how would it go" as loose notes, and to have multi stories going and what that answer is... then to customize that answer as the game goes on. Then watch as the players introduce CHAOS into everything they do