D&D General Sandbox and/or/vs Linear campaigns

[overgeeked]

For what it's worth I wish there were a better term as well. I'd be open to suggestion, I've just never seen any real alternatives.

It’s a perfectly useable term. The people who insist on fixating or taking it too literally will either find similar “problems” with the new term or force people to use overblown, hyper-specific nonsensical jargon to say the exact same thing. That is to say, the problem isn’t the term it’s the people fixating or taking it too literally or arguing just to argue.

 

[Remathilis]

For what it's worth I wish there were a better term as well. I'd be open to suggestion, I've just never seen any real alternatives.

Video games tend to use term "open world" to differentiate from linear games. I'm surprised the term didn't loop back to TT games.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I'd suggest not using ENWorld as the place to try to define things. We can't even agree on what an RPG is, so trying to define things like railroading, linear adventure, or sandbox are going to be harder still.

I mostly run open-world sandboxes. It's something like a mix of your moderate, advanced, and ultimate sandbox definitions. But not exactly.

Pre-made or homebrew world. Work up some notes on the starting town which includes NPCs, factions, situations-hooks, etc. Create a few nearby points of interest to explore and interact with, along with whatever NPCs, factions, situations-hooks, etc those require. Make sure they point to other points of interest or back to the town. Discrete points on an ever-expanding web, basically.

Check in with the players to find out what some of their goals or their PCs' goals are and incorporate them into the setting if they're more quick and immediate or start thinking of how to fit them in later if they're more long-term goals.

Giving the NPCs and factions goals and timers is also important. The PCs don't exist in a static world. I don't need to know what the PCs will do, only what the NPCs will do. Unless the PCs stop them, the snake cult is going to kidnap the prince in one month...and unless the PCs stop them, the snake cult is going to sacrifice the prince one month later. I know the king is going to be pissed if the adventurers fail and even more pissed if the PCs accept the job then abandon it. There is no pre-defined story. Only NPCs and factions with goals and interesting locations. Everything changes when the PCs get involved.

Drop the PCs in the starter town and let them go. Play is usually the PCs bouncing off NPCs and factions, picking up jobs or abandoning them, following their own goals or abandoning them, but all the while they're making an impression on the NPCs, factions, and setting. Action and reaction are key to making a sandbox feel like a living, breathing place. Consequences for actions or inaction. Rewarded for saving the dragon from the princess or hunted by the kingdom for abandoning the prince to the snake cult. Create a drama-tension rich environment and wind it up before dropping the PCs in and seeing what happens. You could rewind back to 1 and use all the same material for a different group and it would play out completely differently every time.

And of course the improv, always so much improv.

I have a stack of modules to drop in if I need them, a stack of random encounter tables if I need them, and the old pulp trope of send in a goon with a sword if I need to stall for time. If all else fails, I can simply put an obstacle between them and their current goal.

The difference between a sandbox and a railroad is night and day. The players have real choices in a sandbox whereas they don't in a railroad. At a guess this is a spectrum and whatever linear adventures are they are either somewhere between the two on that spectrum or orthogonal to that spectrum.

If you're looking for sandbox resources, there's a thread for that. Link to my post there. There's lots of great stuff out there for sandbox play.

Thanks for this detailed response!

Now, could it be said that a sandbox campaign is one in which the PCs have many choices as to what they wish to pursue AND, presumably, what they wish to pursue usually has some end goal. A sandbox therefore could be defined as a group of loosely connected adventures and activities - if only by the fact that they are all found on the same map/box. Within most of those adventures, in which the party has an end goal in mind, does the playstyle switch from "sandbox" to a "moderate" or "advanced linear" adventure (if I may use some made-up terms from the OP)? Once that goal is achieved or abandoned, we're back to "sandbox" style to find the party's next activity.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Video games tend to use term "open world" to differentiate from linear games. I'm surprised the term didn't loop back to TT games.

I like language like that more personally. But the ship has sailed lol

 

[Bedrockgames]

Thanks for this detailed response!

Now, could it be said that a sandbox campaign is one in which the PCs have many choices as to what they wish to pursue AND, presumably, what they wish to pursue usually has some end goal. A sandbox therefore could be defined as a group of loosely connected adventures and activities - if only by the fact that they are all found on the same map/box. Within most of those adventures, in which the party has an end goal in mind, does the playstyle switch from "sandbox" to a "moderate" or "advanced linear" adventure (if I may use some made-up terms from the OP)? Once that goal is achieved or abandoned, we're back to "sandbox" style to find the party's next activity.

I would say most people who are into sandbox don't use the term to describe a group of loosely connected adventures. You can certainly run sandboxes that way if you want, and it might crop up occasionally, but I think that sort of of linear play is more something sandbox is promising more of an escape from.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Since you reject any and all labels, maybe don't threadcrap?

To be fair, @KYRON45's posts in the [rant] thread are what inspired me to splinter off to start this thread.
I don't feel like their points are threadcrapping. It's a valid opinion to say "sandbox" play, as it is popularly defined, is an illusion. I honestly can't say I fully agree but... there's a point there.

 

[DragonLancer]

In all the time I've run this, there is one story hook that nobody ever touches - and I think it is really, really, really cool. I intentionally try to hype it up as I want the players to have freedom and write their own fates ... but when I describe it to the players they usually agree that they wish they'd taken the hook.

Assuming it won't spoil anything for anyone on here, but what is the hook they never pursue?

 

[Remathilis]

It isn't, I don't think, about what is "allowed" so much as what lies within the bounds of the agreement folks started with. That is the "box" -- and this is true with sandboxes, linear adventure paths, and everything in between.

I'll agree with that. I just don't particularly like the notion that sandbox is open to the PCs doing "whatever" because at there is always a certain point where things fall outside the scope of what the DM will allow. The walls of the box are somewhere. The difference is how much room the players have until they find them. A railroad has very tight walls. A linear adventure is a little wider. A sandbox depends on the size of the box, be it a region, a continent, a world or the Multiverse itself.

 

[KYRON45]

To be fair, @KYRON45's posts in the [rant] thread are what inspired me to splinter off to start this thread.
I don't feel like their points are threadcrapping. It's a valid opinion to say "sandbox" play, as it is popularly defined, is an illusion. I honestly can't say I fully agree but... there's a point there.

Thanks…I appreciate this quite a bit.
I had an opinion and I threw it into the void….but as we all know….the void givith and the void disagrees and doesn’t like to be disagreed with.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I would say most people who are into sandbox don't use the term to describe a group of loosely connected adventures. You can certainly run sandboxes that way if you want, and it might crop up occasionally, but I think that sort of of linear play is more something sandbox is promising more of an escape from.

So... what are the adventurers doing in a sandbox if not, at least some of the time, going on adventures? And how can it be said these adventures are not loosely connected when they all exist in the same game world?

Not trying to be obtuse here, but I'm truly trying wrap my head around the premise of a campaign in which the players are running PC adventurers who are actively escaping from going on adventures. Maybe this is just a semantic misunderstanding.