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

[GMforPowergamers]

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?

it could be... it really depends more on the relationship from DM to players...
if I am playing and I start to find out about the dragon cult and say "cool, I want to join them" and the DM says "Dude, no they are the bad guys for you to fight" then that is railroad. if he says "WTF... these are the badguys..." then figures out what it would mean for me to join them and starts to run it... that is a sandbox. it isn't just choice of adventure (although that is a good first step) but choices IN the adventure.

in general the more curve balls the DM will roll with, the more 'I didn't see that coming' that he allows the more sandbox it is.

just a few things:
the time we made magical nukes
the time we forged an alliance of pelor and vecna
the time we ended up with a PC marrying the half dragon queen of the kobolds
the time I personally took a deadlands game half way across the country, killed a dozen important NPCs, just to come back and find that the 1 PC left behind at the town we started at had become mayor...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think these kinds of exercises are useful, and introducing new elements like that and kind of seeing how the chemistry might play out is good. I had a campaign where a major shift in the area was due to the introduction of a powerful new drug (which had all kinds of ripple effects in terms of crime, feuds between criminal organizations, changes in enforcement of law, social consequences and effects). Those kinds of things can create interesting lines of tension in the setting that players can interact with

oh man I forgot about the time we accidentally made PCP and became drug kingpins (I think we were supposed to be working for the harpers to save the world... we got sidetacked)

 

[payn]

Sure. 1E and Basic dragons are not really that dangerous on a large scale. they are St George's dragon. But 2E and 3.x dragons can be major powers unto themselves. I myself like a city breaker scale dragon -- Smaug or the dragons from Lodoss War.

Indeed. I have wanted bounded accuracy for so so long and was happy when 5E added it. It makes sense why dragons have lairs now and dont just murder easily anything in their path. It also explains why a village or city doesn't take out the dragon because they would lose most of the town doing it. So there is some reasonable explanations why the world works and is as it is.

Another take is to just let all the actual mechanics lie under the hood. Either the dragon is something you run away from for months and months of game sessions until you can face it, or it just appears only when the PCs are ready and able to face it. More the PF2 model here.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

There are always spaces in between. If you make a map of a town and flesh out all the major areas, the players are still going to say things like "what happens when I go down this particular alley and look through the nearest window?". For me, those spaces in between is where a lot of the magic happens.

I swear I have players that can read my mind and alternate between "perfect easiest most direct path" and "oh THATs the place he didn't prep for lets go there"

 

[Bedrockgames]

I swear I have players that can read my mind and alternate between "perfect easiest most direct path" and "oh THATs the place he didn't prep for lets go there"

For me this where the worlds really start to clarify and come to life. I can do all the prep in the world, but until I have PCs on the ground doing what they do, it doesn't really come into being. Once that happens then I start to understand the world.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

For me this where the worlds really start to clarify and come to life. I can do all the prep in the world, but until I have PCs on the ground doing what they do, it doesn't really come into being. Once that happens then I start to understand the world.

yup... for me the best moment of most campaigns come when a Player says "Hey what if we do X" where X was never planned for or built in... maybe it is 'start a store or bar' but maybe it is 'make the enemy our friend' or sometimes something crazier like 'lets make cursed potions and sell them as poison'

 

[Reynard]

Either the dragon is something you run away from for months and months of game sessions until you can face it, or it just appears only when the PCs are ready and able to face it.

I want them to know it is there the whole time. I want them absolutely salivating at the idea of killing it and claiming its hoard, so much so that maybe the try and pull it off a little too early.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I want them to know it is there the whole time. I want them absolutely salivating at the idea of killing it and claiming its hoard, so much so that maybe the try and pull it off a little too early.

putting a high CR monster into a low level gameis so much fun (until someone LEROY JENKINS it early... then it could be amazing or TPK worthy.

 

[Reynard]

putting a high CR monster into a low level gameis so much fun (until someone LEROY JENKINS it early... then it could be amazing or TPK worthy.

IMO, it needs to be entirely up to the players when they engage it. That's why I like dragons -- they are easy to leave in their lairs for years at a time.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

IMO, it needs to be entirely up to the players when they engage it. That's why I like dragons -- they are easy to leave in their lairs for years at a time.

100% agree

edit: but sometimes you look at the CR (admittedly a weak answer to how powerful something is) and say "I think you may not be tall enough for this ride"... but you say it to yourself and cross your fingers.