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

[Bedrockgames]

That's my point of disagreement. The only difference between the two is the number of choices on the menu. The fact that the menu is 100% derived by the DM and the players can only react based on whatever choices the DM hands them means that it's not really any different. Since, frankly in most sandboxes, most choices won't actually be on the table because of the level system - that vampire in the castle is off limits for that 1st level party, even if it is technically a choice.

Whether the menu comes from the GM doesnt matter. I don't know why you keep bringing this into the discussion. I mean it matters if what you want is for the players to have some control over that aspect of the setting and play, but it doesn't matter if we are just talking about whether players have freedom of choice in a sandbox. And this last point is simply untrue. A solid sandbox is going to have a wide variety choices available at multiple levels. It isn't going to be well there is this one dungeon you can service, then you level and can go to the next dungeon. That isn't how they are typically designed.

At the end of the day, it's just the players doing whatever the DM decides the players will be doing today.

No, absolutely not. You are just asserting this is what a sandbox is. Anyone who has run them, knows the point isn't to just present the players with one choice, that you have already decided for the night.

 

[Lanefan]

Umm, sorry @Bedrockgames, I cannot parse the bolded part. I think your autocorrect was working overtime there.

But, "Players choose to go to a sage and then go somewhere based on the information the sage gives" is a linear adventure. That's linear by definition. There's no choice involved. But, if you believe that a trail of breadcrumbs dealt out by the DM is non-linear, we really aren't going to be able to have a meaningful conversation here.

The two bolded parts would seem in direct contradiction.

The players in-character also have choice as to whether - or how - to act on whatever info the sage may give.

 

[AlexofBarbaria]

You start at A, proceed through B-F in order of choice and then arrive at the G spot at the end.

wait what kind of dungeons are we talking about

 

[Hussar]

The two bolded parts would seem in direct contradiction.

The players in-character also have choice as to whether - or how - to act on whatever info the sage may give.

No, they are not. The players have declared they want to go to a Spelljammer ship. The DM provides every step along the path that leads them from where they are to where they want to go. They go to this sage because the DM tells them that they need someone to help them find a portal to the Nexus. They travel to the Nexus because that's where the DM tells them they have to go. Once in Nexus, they talk to the NPC's that the DM tells them that they need to talk to in order to find a Spelljammer. And, once they have followed the completely linear path from A to B to C to D, they arrive at the Spelljammer ship.

Other than the initial hook of "We want a Spelljammer ship" the players have zero input into how the adventure plays out. It's entirely linear. That the players get to choose from the DM's menu doesn't make any real difference - it's still just reacting to whatever the DM has put into play.

 

[pemerton]

Normally for a sandbox a GM has a whole setting planned out with all kinds of places, sites, situations, NPCs, factions, towns, etc. The players decide where they want to go and what they want to do. This could be something like a typical adventure (I.e. when they hear about Iron Temple, and its Thousand Painful Deaths flower, they might go there, but a lot of the action frequently revolves more around things the players are initiating with NPCs and power groups).

<snip>

I don't think most sandbox GMs are thinking in terms of leading players to stories. Every GM is different, but I tend to think more in terms of NPCs and their motivations.

Here some stuff I found online that presents itself as being about sandboxing:

How to make a Fantasy Sandbox

. . .

21. Look at your notes and come up with two to four plots that ties one or more locales together. Write a paragraph or two on each.

22. For each population locale come up with three to five encounters. They should be a sentence each.

23. Come up with 6 to 12 general encounter for the region as a whole. Should usable in any area of the region. They are a sentence or two each. . . .

33. Make up a rumor chart with 10 to 20 items that feeds the players into the encounter and plots you created in above.


Plot in your Sandbox Campaign

. . .

A Story Arcs needs to be Plot Arc and it is a plan of action that will change after the PCs interact with each encounter. Think of your setting, NPCS, and locale as a bag of stuff. What mix get put out depends on where your PCs are, and what they did. With this you don't have to worry that a specific outcome must occur at a specific time.

The easiest way of planning the plot is to think of it as series of What Ifs. What if Darkon the Lich gets killed here, what if he survives? While it appears to be daunting in practice these What Ifs turn out to be limited. The interests of the players, and how they play, are strong clues as to what they would reasonably do. You can use this knowledge to manipulate the players as well to narrow the range of possibilities you have to prepare for.​

The remarks about feeding the players into the encounters and plots the GM has created and manipulating the players seem to conform to what @Hussar has been saying.

 

[AlViking]

And thus, the thin veneer. The players say, based on the information you have given them, we choose A from the menu. You then cook A. After that, they choose B from the menu, and you cook B. So on and so forth. There's no real sandbox here since the only difference is the number of choices on the menu. At no point is there not a menu. The fact that you "plan for the next session" pretty much means that any choice the players had was only in reaction to whatever roads you choose to lay down.

I don't limit how they cook A. Quite frequently they roast it, sometimes they make a shish kabob, other times they throw it out and make something else completely. Just like in life there are not infinite options, but I don't limit the options on the menu I just provide the ingredients.

An example. In a recent tangent a healer and herbalist had asked for help in a small village because people were unexpectedly dying. To make a long story short the self-appointed mayor of the town was a mini-boss of Criminals Inc funding a local mad scientist's experiments. The mad scientist had good, if somewhat twisted, intentions and had been convinced by the mini-boss that the only way to save the region was to experiment on the locals causing regrettable deaths. My planning was the outline, stats for the mad scientist I didn't expect to need, the mini-boss and his lackeys and just for fun stats for some dangerous local wildlife. But my notes? Info about the town and some possible NPCs. The encounters? A list of monsters and how many to have for different levels of challenge. Plots? Nah. Encounter A must happen in order to trigger encounter B? No. For that matter I had monster stats for C, D and E that I didn't expect to use, it was just possible threats that made sense for the area that I could use.

As often happens things went completely sideways and I had to create a whole bunch of stuff on the fly. It included a bored character who wandered off on his own and nearly died, a fight with the mad scientist that almost ended in a TPK because they attacked him, a whole series of events that I had not predicted. I had to on the spot figure out how people reacted, what would happen, ended up using the monsters from D but changed the fluff a bit to fit and so on.

Just because I established the outlines of a town and it's inhabitants, put something there the players were interested in, does not to me mean it was a linear session. Yes, the outlines of the world existed before they interacted with but character created worlds are a completely different thing.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Here some stuff I found online that presents itself as being about sandboxing:

How to make a Fantasy Sandbox​

​

. . .​

​

21. Look at your notes and come up with two to four plots that ties one or more locales together. Write a paragraph or two on each.​

​

22. For each population locale come up with three to five encounters. They should be a sentence each.​

​

23. Come up with 6 to 12 general encounter for the region as a whole. Should usable in any area of the region. They are a sentence or two each. . . .​

​

33. Make up a rumor chart with 10 to 20 items that feeds the players into the encounter and plots you created in above.​

​

​

Plot in your Sandbox Campaign​

​

. . .​

​

A Story Arcs needs to be Plot Arc and it is a plan of action that will change after the PCs interact with each encounter. Think of your setting, NPCS, and locale as a bag of stuff. What mix get put out depends on where your PCs are, and what they did. With this you don't have to worry that a specific outcome must occur at a specific time.​

​

The easiest way of planning the plot is to think of it as series of What Ifs. What if Darkon the Lich gets killed here, what if he survives? While it appears to be daunting in practice these What Ifs turn out to be limited. The interests of the players, and how they play, are strong clues as to what they would reasonably do. You can use this knowledge to manipulate the players as well to narrow the range of possibilities you have to prepare for.​

The remarks about feeding the players into the encounters and plots the GM has created and manipulating the players seem to conform to what @Hussar has been saying.

I will let Rob speak for himself, but I don't think Rob is using plot the same way you or Hussar are here. I think I know what Rob is talking about here, but I don't want to put words in his mouth. But I can tell you that the point of a sandbox isn't to feed players into encounters and plots the GM has created, or manipulate players the way Hussar is describing. This is one of the reasons things like Random encounter table are so central in discussions about sandbox.

I am honestly not sure why some posters have so much hostility towards this one adventure structure they feel the need to deconstruct it in this way to prove a point. I have to say the aggressive stance some people take towards sandbox, to the point that they feel the need to build arguments that sandbox doesn't exist, suggest to me there are folks who feel threatened by it or something. If you don't like sandboxes, by all means don't play them (in many ways they can be a giant pain in the ass and they aren't the only adventure structure out there). But the promise of a sandbox is fairly simple, players are let loose in a setting that the GM has prepped and told they can do what they want, set goals for themselves or pursue sites and adventures in the setting. There isn't one uniform way to make them. Some will have preloaded adventures, most seem to try to get a more organic arrangement where the players are an important catalyst for what shape adventures take. But the important thing is there isnt just one adventure for the night. If the GM does throw them hooks (and a lot of sandboxes avoid hooks that would steer a party), the players are free to ignore it and go onto something else.

 

[AlViking]

The description below is far, far more work and planning than I would ever do.

Here some stuff I found online that presents itself as being about sandboxing:

How to make a Fantasy Sandbox​

​

. . .​

​

21. Look at your notes and come up with two to four plots that ties one or more locales together. Write a paragraph or two on each.​

Come up with "plots"? An entire paragraph or two? I have rumors of what might be happening with important features sketched out maybe. Typically I try to tie rumors into things that have happened in fairly recent sessions.

​

22. For each population locale come up with three to five encounters. They should be a sentence each.​

​

I may have notes on locales as part of general planning but it's rarely more than town name, size, perhaps what they're known for.

23. Come up with 6 to 12 general encounter for the region as a whole. Should usable in any area of the region. They are a sentence or two each. . . .​

​

Why? Why create encounters until they're needed? If the group is headed to a place I'll have notes on the place and then have a list of monster groupings I might use that would make sense for the area. But I don't think in terms of encounters, I think individuals or groups along with what they want.

Typical monster group I think I might use for the next session because this is the type of enemy they could face. I guess you could call it a planned encounter if you really stretch it.
Bandit Captain CR 2 x1
Fist of Bane CR 1/2 x1 (med) x2 (hard)

33. Make up a rumor chart with 10 to 20 items that feeds the players into the encounter and plots you created in above.​

​

Dang, that's a lot more rumors than I would ever use and also backwards and a whole lot more work than I do.

​

Plot in your Sandbox Campaign​

​

. . .​

​

A Story Arcs needs to be Plot Arc and it is a plan of action that will change after the PCs interact with each encounter. Think of your setting, NPCS, and locale as a bag of stuff. What mix get put out depends on where your PCs are, and what they did. With this you don't have to worry that a specific outcome must occur at a specific time.​

​

The easiest way of planning the plot is to think of it as series of What Ifs. What if Darkon the Lich gets killed here, what if he survives? While it appears to be daunting in practice these What Ifs turn out to be limited. The interests of the players, and how they play, are strong clues as to what they would reasonably do. You can use this knowledge to manipulate the players as well to narrow the range of possibilities you have to prepare for.​

The remarks about feeding the players into the encounters and plots the GM has created and manipulating the players seem to conform to what @Hussar has been saying.

Sigh. I never do the above. I have a general idea of who's who that includes friends, enemies, neutrals. As the session proceeds I'll have these individuals or groups react to the characters actions based on their motivations. After the session I'll review my notes and decide if there will be further repercussions down the line for good or ill. Sometimes enemies develop a more neutral attitude, sometimes I threw in an ad-hoc NPC that the players really liked (or hated) so I'll figure out how to use them again.

What I don't do is plan more than a session or so ahead. I only think about if or how goals have changed for others because of what the characters did or did not do.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No, they are not. The players have declared they want to go to a Spelljammer ship. The DM provides every step along the path that leads them from where they are to where they want to go. They go to this sage because the DM tells them that they need someone to help them find a portal to the Nexus. They travel to the Nexus because that's where the DM tells them they have to go. Once in Nexus, they talk to the NPC's that the DM tells them that they need to talk to in order to find a Spelljammer. And, once they have followed the completely linear path from A to B to C to D, they arrive at the Spelljammer ship.

Other than the initial hook of "We want a Spelljammer ship" the players have zero input into how the adventure plays out. It's entirely linear. That the players get to choose from the DM's menu doesn't make any real difference - it's still just reacting to whatever the DM has put into play.

You are confusing player input on setting with player choice among things in the setting. And all you are doing is noting events happened, forming a timeline based on events and calling it a linear adventure. The players could have gone to someone or someplace else other than the sage. They could could have completely shifted focus to another thing (I.e. forget about the spelljammer let’s go see if the folks at Dragon Hall are hiring guards). That the GM is in charge of setting content isn’t relevant here. And you are still wrong IMO about how much player choice and action shapes what the GM does with the setting but that is a whole separate conversation about GM authority than whether or not the players are being railroaded on a single adventure or are free to choose what they want to spend time pursuing

 

[pemerton]

What I don't do is plan more than a session or so ahead. I only think about if or how goals have changed for others because of what the characters did or did not do.

That sounds fairly similar to what I've heard about Worlds Without Number.