D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AlViking]

A "true" sandbox, IMO, will have a LOT of improv by the DM because the players will often go off to places, etc. which the DM has not prepped beforehand.

Yes, the DM can present multiple hooks, each one prepared ahead of time to one degree or another, but if they players decide not to follow any of them, and are free to go do something else (which the DM has not prepared at all), then it becomes improv on the DM's part.

That isn't to say that once the PCs have decided on a path, the DM can prepare for that next session, but in the meanwhile it is improv.

Another is the "fake" sandbox. The DM has a planned adventure (say a dungeon) but the players do something else. Later on, the DM "recycles" the un-used dungeon/adventure elsewhere. The players never (or not often) realize that it was already made and just needed a bit of tweaking to get up to speed later on. Frankly, I do this often. After all, I put a lot of time and effort into the adventure, and to "not play it at all" seems a colossal waste of time and I find it frustrating.

To be clear, this is not the same as presenting two or three hooks and the players returning to an unexplored hook later on.

I ask that the players try to decide where they're headed before the session so I can prep. Even then they often make unexpected choices and I have to adjust. Because of that I'll usually have more encounters sketched out than I need and change the descriptions of the enemy to fit the new scenario. I also typically don't worry about detailed maps because it's just not worth it. Most video games by their very nature are pretty linear, if you skip a quest in Meridian it will frequently be there later on. But that's not what happens in the games I run. Some hooks may be available later on, some may be similar but changed based on the actions of the characters, many hooks will simply fade away.

I have no issue with more linear games, they can be just as fun as a player as long as I know what I'm getting into as long as there's a bit of wiggle room.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can say anything about anything and it might insult someone. You’d have to ask yourself why my opinion means anything to you at all.

I’m just trying to discover if “sandbox” is just what we call more option. At what point does not sandbox become sandbox? And if there is no line of demarcation does the term mean anything or is just an expression people use to differentiate you’re thing from the other thing?

What is the cut off?

Was my explanation insufficient? If so, what don't you understand?

 

[KYRON45]

"Sandbox" is generally applied on a "strategic" level. Players can go wherever they want and explore what's there, without an overall narrative forcing them to go to location A, then location B, and then location C, and so on. At the extreme end it either leads to hyperpreparation on the part of the GM (who prepares many locations more than what are actually encountered) or a campaign highly based on random events/encounters. IME, a full sandbox is generally not highly satisfying, but it's possible I've just never run into a good one.

You can also have more limited sandboxes, usually with some sort of impetus for the PCs to explore it. For example, Pathfinder 2 has an adventure path named Age of Ashes, which as PF APs tend to be is split into 6 parts. The overall structure is pretty linear – you're going to different regions of the world to deal with different threats (or different aspects of the same threat). But one of the sections is a partial sandbox/hexcrawl where you need to explore a particular region of jungle in order to find a bunch of locations before attacking the baddies' main HQ. And of course there were a whole bunch of locations/encounters there that weren't directly linked to the main plot. This was fun, because it allowed us to feel a sense of freedom while still having an over-arching goal.

This touches on my question. If there are different kinds of sandboxes….can’t anything be considered a sand box?

If my plan is to run an AP….and during that AP the party decides to make a left (when the literature wants them to go right) and engage in another AP farther down the road…..isn’t that a form of sandbox? To make it not a sandbox wouldn’t I as the DM have to say….no…it’s this AP this way or nothing?

 

[ezo]

I ask that the players try to decide where they're headed before the session so I can prep. Even then they often make unexpected choices and I have to adjust. Because of that I'll usually have more encounters sketched out than I need and change the descriptions of the enemy to fit the new scenario. I also typically don't worry about detailed maps because it's just not worth it. Most video games by their very nature are pretty linear, if you skip a quest in Meridian it will frequently be there later on. But that's not what happens in the games I run. Some hooks may be available later on, some may be similar but changed based on the actions of the characters, many hooks will simply fade away.

I have no issue with more linear games, they can be just as fun as a player as long as I know what I'm getting into as long as there's a bit of wiggle room.

Yep. I warn players if they don't take any of the hooks (I usually offer 2-3 at a time), then the current session will be more of a travel montage or I'll be improving it. Not a big deal, I've been doing it for decades, just means things might run a bit more slowly than otherwise if I run my prepped stuff.

 

[KYRON45]

Was my explanation insufficient? If so, what don't you understand?

You insinuating that I don’t understand is offensive to me. I’m kidding; I’ve never been offended by anything.

My question really is simply(but probably not simple at all), at what point does a linear game with multiple possible lines become a sandbox? And also…if all of the encounters in the sandbox are somehow related is that really a sandbox?

Simply put…are the choices adventure path or sandbox? What if I want multiple APs in my sandbox?

Is the term “sandbox” a pretense to say that this style is better than that style or does it really mean something?

I’m not looking for who’s right or wrong; as a lifetime holder of minority opinions I won’t cry myself to sleep regardless of who answers in which way. I’m just enjoying the conversation. My job is pretty boring.

 

[AlViking]

This touches on my question. If there are different kinds of sandboxes….can’t anything be considered a sand box?

If my plan is to run an AP….and during that AP the party decides to make a left (when the literature wants them to go right) and engage in another AP farther down the road…..isn’t that a form of sandbox? To make it not a sandbox wouldn’t I as the DM have to say….no…it’s this AP this way or nothing?

You're talking about a general term used to describe a style of game not an engineering unit of measure decided upon by international committee. The answer is going to depend on who you ask, there's a broad spectrum between every encounter is improvised to a campaign run on rails.

Personally I would say that if certain events must happen during the course of a campaign it's not a sandbox. I also don't think the label matters much outside of broad descriptions. For example I may decide that a powerful demon is set on invading the realm, if the players decide not to do anything about it then I may figure out what happens when the invasion is successful if I think it will be fun for the players, even if it's a future campaign. It's also why I don't set up many world ending scenarios. Not only are they kind of boring when it happens time and time again, I never guarantee the players will succeed.

But I run games for multiple groups and some really don't care or can never really decide on direction as long as they have fun along the way. In those cases I'll try to get a feel for what kind of sessions they like and I don't really bother giving them many options. But in some ways that's still a sandbox because I don't have a detailed outline I must adhere to.

 

[NN]

If you have more than 6.5 megadoodahs of player agency you are in a sandbox and if it drops below 3,7 you are on a railroad.

 

[AlViking]

If you have more than 6.5 megadoodahs of player agency you are in a sandbox and if it drops below 3,7 you are on a railroad.

Are you measuring using imperial or metric megadoodahs?

 

[NN]

metric, im not a barbarian

 

[Staffan]

You insinuating that I don’t understand is offensive to me. I’m kidding; I’ve never been offended by anything.

My question really is simply(but probably not simple at all), at what point does a linear game with multiple possible lines become a sandbox? And also…if all of the encounters in the sandbox are somehow related is that really a sandbox?

Simply put…are the choices adventure path or sandbox? What if I want multiple APs in my sandbox?

Is the term “sandbox” a pretense to say that this style is better than that style or does it really mean something?

I’m not looking for who’s right or wrong; as a lifetime holder of minority opinions I won’t cry myself to sleep regardless of who answers in which way. I’m just enjoying the conversation. My job is pretty boring.

As with everything else, it's a sliding scale. On one hand you have a fully open world where PCs can go anywhere and do anything, with little or nothing other than their own whims to propel them forward. On the other, you have a completely linear campaign with encounter after encounter predetermined.

I think fully open sandboxes in PnP RPGs are overrated – partially because much of what makes a CRPG sandbox fun is abstracted away in PnP. In a computer game you can spend an hour exploring a place and suddenly find something new. But no-one (well, almost no-one) wants to do that in PnP. That's just going to frustrate both the GM and the rest of the players. They're more attractive in CRPGs, because they add replayability. If I build my character this way and make these choices, what new options will the game offer me now? At the same time, some of the best fun I've had was with a semi-sandbox in Star Wars, where the PCs had taken over a super-secret imperial spy base and had to figure out how to keep it running and how to keep the Empire from figuring out it was there and how to prevent the Moff who had it commissioned from taking it back. But that sandbox had a clear direction for the PCs.