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

[Hussar]

Respectfully, I disagree that "you can't."

You can, but yes it is an insane amount of work AND being comfortable with a lot of improv, AND you need a lot of player buy-in. Like your second group, if the players really have to be vested in the world and interested in finding things out or it just doesn't work. The players have as much agency in the game as they do in real life, if not a bit more.

So, while it is extremely difficult to get it to work "just right", it is certainly possible.... not likely, perhaps, but possible.

IME - what people call "sandbox" is just a bunch of DM created scenarios strung together by whatever hooks the players choose to bite on. Which is to say, because everything comes from the DM and the players simply react to whatever the DM makes available, I reject the description of "sandbox".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Respectfully, I disagree that "you can't."

You can, but yes it is an insane amount of work AND being comfortable with a lot of improv, AND you need a lot of player buy-in. Like your second group, if the players really have to be vested in the world and interested in finding things out or it just doesn't work. The players have as much agency in the game as they do in real life, if not a bit more.

So, while it is extremely difficult to get it to work "just right", it is certainly possible.... not likely, perhaps, but possible.

I think it depends on how serous you are about it being as sandboxy as, say, Minecraft, or just giving the feeling of being a true sandbox. Most "sandboxes" I see in D&D, even ones like what you describe, are rather more like a sequence of DM-developed adventures. The DM furnishes the hooks the players can pull on. It's a menu written by the DM, the players just select their preferred dishes. The players participate (perhaps even more than Hussar permits--I think it's still quite possible for the PCs to choose the order of the adventures undertaken, even in D&D), but with how D&D's structure and mechanics work, it's still entirely the DM designing a jungle-gym for the PCs to play around on.

Like, Minecraft is a true sandbox. There is no goal outside of what you feel like doing. There is a theoretical progression path, but nothing requires you to even consider it, e.g. I've never actually been to The End myself, despite playing Minecraft for years. I don't think such a thing could ever happen in a D&D "sandbox". Eventually you're gonna go face one of those epic challenges. It's just a matter of when, and which. That falls somewhat short of a true sandbox.

And part of why I say this is, I was one of the people in the first sandbox group. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to playing more of it someday.

 

[NN]

There is “no difference” between a buffet, a menu, and a set menu. All rely on a chef deciding what to cook.

(note, some games are more like a potluck. Or a bbq where evryone brings food, but one person is the designated griller)

 

[ezo]

Which is to say, because everything comes from the DM and the players simply react to whatever the DM makes available,

As I said, as much agency as life, itself, as to offer. People can choose what to do, where to go, how to act, even cause things to happen and influence the world. What people cannot do, however, is control what other people do, what is happening outside their scope, and so on.

In a sandbox game, players do what "people can do in real life", everything else beyond their scope is what the DM controls.

So, yes, just as real people deal with what life throws at them, regardless of where they go, etc., the PCs deal with what the DM throws at them. How they deal with it, if they choose to, or to go somewhere else and deal with something else, is up to the players.

I reject the description of "sandbox".

Which is why I disagreed with you. Given your statement above, no shocker there.

 

[NN]

Ez

Is you one of them there newfangled indy narratavistical types decrying the amount of DM control in D&Dish games even in those selflabelling as “sandbox”?

Or is you some grumpy trad illusiionist sore at the sandboxers being mean about your shiny railroad ?

 

[ezo]

Most "sandboxes" I see in D&D, even ones like what you describe, are rather more like a sequence of DM-developed adventures. The DM furnishes the hooks the players can pull on. It's a menu written by the DM, the players just select their preferred dishes. The players participate (perhaps even more than Hussar permits--I think it's still quite possible for the PCs to choose the order of the adventures undertaken, even in D&D), but with how D&D's structure and mechanics work, it's still entirely the DM designing a jungle-gym for the PCs to play around on.

I agree for the most part, especially in what most D&D sandboxes are, but let me present you with an analogy:

The kids playing in the sandbox don't build the sandbox or bring in the sand. They don't control the weather outside, or what other kids beyond their friends might join them in the sandbox--or how those other kids act.

Now, I suppose the first things the "kids" could do--built it, bring in the sand, but they can't stop other kids unless they only want to interact with each other and no one else. Maybe they only allow in "imaginary friends" who they can control as well?

But even to this extreme, they still don't control the weather outside, or what sand falls out of the box and what stays in, and so forth.

Regardless, most kids don't build their own sandbox, they come to play in one. D&D can certainly be like that. The DM can present the world and creatures, things, whatever in it (the sandbox). The players can decide where they want to go, what they want to do, "interact with the sand" the DM put there. So, to say this isn't as much of a sandbox as something as your Ironsword experience (or perhaps even Minecraft) is IMO ungenerous to the definition of a sandbox.

Like, Minecraft is a true sandbox. There is no goal outside of what you feel like doing. There is a theoretical progression path, but nothing requires you to even consider it, e.g. I've never actually been to The End myself, despite playing Minecraft for years. I don't think such a thing could ever happen in a D&D "sandbox". Eventually you're gonna go face one of those epic challenges. It's just a matter of when, and which. That falls somewhat short of a true sandbox.

I've never played minecraft, so I couldn't comment on this very much. But let me ask you some questions:

• Did you create how the game works?
• Do you create/ control the canvas / world or whatever you build on?
• Do you have infinte blocks or whatever to build with? Did you have to don anything to get them?
• Do you have other people creating in your game or is it just you?

And part of why I say this is, I was one of the people in the first sandbox group. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to playing more of it someday.

Cool. I'm sure for a lot of players it might be. You could do the same thing in D&D if you don't want a DM and only players.

I'm not familiar with Ironsworn so I don't know if you even need any sort of referee or not, but it seems like you don't.

 

[ezo]

Ez

Is you one of them there newfangled indy narratavistical types decrying the amount of DM control in D&Dish games even in those selflabelling as “sandbox”?

Or is you some grumpy trad illusiionist sore at the sandboxers being mean about your shiny railroad ?

LOL considering your tone here nothing prompts me to answer you. Have a nice weekend.

 

[NN]

LOL considering your tone here nothing prompts me to answer you. Have a nice weekend.

Conclusion: you are no.2 pretending to be no.1 to fashion a gotcha. Goodbye forever.

 

[AlViking]

I think it depends on how serous you are about it being as sandboxy as, say, Minecraft, or just giving the feeling of being a true sandbox. Most "sandboxes" I see in D&D, even ones like what you describe, are rather more like a sequence of DM-developed adventures. The DM furnishes the hooks the players can pull on. It's a menu written by the DM, the players just select their preferred dishes. The players participate (perhaps even more than Hussar permits--I think it's still quite possible for the PCs to choose the order of the adventures undertaken, even in D&D), but with how D&D's structure and mechanics work, it's still entirely the DM designing a jungle-gym for the PCs to play around on.

Like, Minecraft is a true sandbox. There is no goal outside of what you feel like doing. There is a theoretical progression path, but nothing requires you to even consider it, e.g. I've never actually been to The End myself, despite playing Minecraft for years. I don't think such a thing could ever happen in a D&D "sandbox". Eventually you're gonna go face one of those epic challenges. It's just a matter of when, and which. That falls somewhat short of a true sandbox.

And part of why I say this is, I was one of the people in the first sandbox group. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to playing more of it someday.

A predetermined epic end as envisioned by the DM? That's not true of my games, I sometimes have different ideas of what the end game could possibly be but most of the time it's either a handful of incredibly fuzzy ideas or it shifts and changes as the campaign progresses. I don't plan plots. We discuss themes and ideas for the initial start of the campaign during our session 0 but as the game develops the group decides direction. In a current campaign, I happened to mention as part of the world lore that there was a fallen dwarven keep that had once acted as the capital city for all dwarves. It was just a bit of lore. So now the group has decided their goal is to reclaim it. Will that be the end goal? Maybe, but it's one they chose pretty much at random.

I plan the world and populate it with all sorts of conflicting groups and individuals, plots and schemes. Not everywhere in the entire world but I have a general idea at the kingdom level or regional level of what's going on and what type of challenges could exist there. So one area has a good leader but cracks are beginning to show because the leader is on the verge of death. In another area the land is secretly run by vampires, but the vampires are having their own version of a civil war. Another is suffering from constant invasions and I have a note that a dragon might be behind it. Meanwhile I know the elves and the dwarves of region X don't get along because of a war that happened 250 years ago, practically last week for those long lived races. Someone, or something, is stirring up tensions again and while I know what the war was about I have no clue what is stirring up tension because for now it doesn't matter.

I have no clue what the end goal(s) of my current campaigns will be but I'm sure multiple potential, perhaps unrelated, goals will emerge and the group will decide which one to follow through on. Meanwhile even in a game of Minecraft there are fairly common goals that emerge from play because of the restrictions of the game's rules. Maybe that goal is to simply play around and survive. Maybe it's to replicate your home town. The same as my campaigns, we just have a broader set of rules and options to choose from than you do in Minecraft.

I get that some people will say there is no true sandbox in TTRPGs that have a GM. I just think that it's too narrow of a definition of sandbox if the GM can't even have an idea of what could possibly occur based on what the characters could interact with in the short term. In my definition of a sandbox the GM has an idea of a living world and fills in details as needed. But just because I know that Evil King Whozit stole the Golden Whatzit from the Good King Otherguy and there's a bounty for it's return, it doesn't mean the group is going to do anything about it. Maybe they do and once they get the Golden Whatzit decide that they could sell it or use it in a scheme to get something from Not-Sure-If-She's-Good-Or-Evil Queen Somelady to achieve some other goal I had never seen coming. Because I only know about the three NPCs and what events have led up to the current potential opportunity. What the characters do about it is up to them.

To me there should be some delineation, some terminology we can use to describe games that go from "Do whatever you want" to "These goals must be achieved" to "All these encounters are preplanned from the start of the campaign to the finish of the campaign and must be accomplished in this order" to "You will follow this path and you will make these decisions". Using terms like sandbox, linear and railroad while acknowledging that it's a spectrum are the best we can do and are useful terms.

 

[KYRON45]

IME - what people call "sandbox" is just a bunch of DM created scenarios strung together by whatever hooks the players choose to bite on. Which is to say, because everything comes from the DM and the players simply react to whatever the DM makes available, I reject the description of "sandbox".

We agree.
Here’s what happened. In the mystical before times a DM would buy a module/adventure and run it. Which was nice until players got smart and realized they could give the DM a hard time.

“Go left you say…why I’ve got agency so I’m going to go right since I don’t really respect how much work goes into DMing.”

And thus the “sandbox” myth was born. A term that gave the DM agency to not feel like they just got railroaded by their own players.

Wow…I just created the origin story of the sandbox.

This is all just a conversation about having a conversation. No hurtful intentions went into it. To anyone who was offended, insulted or bothered by my discrediting of the term “sandbox” just ignore me and continue doing what you do.

Next week…verisimilitude: legitimate way of looking at things or multi syllabic nonsense.