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

[Lanefan]

Again with the assumption that the DM is preparing predetermined paths. Why? Do you not understand the difference between planning a set of encounters that will have to happen and setting up and populating a location? I mean, if it's your opinion, it is. I just don't see much similarity between what my campaigns look like and an Adventure Path. I don't have long term planned story or plot lines, I don't ever plan out A will happen then B and there will all lead to conflict C.

Some of these story-now evangelists don't believe the DM should really be able to predetermine anything and-or that it's immediately a railroad (or, in this discussion, a linear campaign) if-when she does.

Arguing is hopeless. Believe me, I've tried.

 

[mamba]

People try to paint this as two approaches. I’m saying it’s all the same approach just with minor variations.

I mean, we can discuss how minor they are but in principle I agree that in both cases there is something DM authored on the menu rather than the players creating the setting

 

[Hussar]

But eventually what is likely to happen, is the players asking "is there a blank here" gets answered in the affirmative (even if the GM had no plan of such a thing being there_

But, there is no actual reason for the GM to say yes. After all, the GM is "preserving his setting". So, if the players ask for anything that the GM feels doesn't fit, then the answer is automatically no. So, the players begin playing 20 Questions to determine where that border is, and, once that's fairly established, can potentially ask questions to add stuff to the setting.

Meanwhile they are apparently doing all of this while actually exploring the setting that is presented and, unless there's some bizarreness going on, are very unlikely to out of the blue ask for things that are unrelated to whatever it is they are doing now. There will always be a reason for asking if there is a Celestial Plume seller and that reason will nearly always be as a result of something the GM has placed in the setting. The players need that Plume because of some task they are undertaking. The task, meanwhile, is selected from the menu that the GM presents.

Again, none of this is saying that sandboxing is bad. I love sandboxing. I'm doing it right now. I've done it in the past. What I don't do though is try to pretend that sandboxing is some completely different animal from other traditional RPG campaign types. It's still the players exploring the DM authored setting, performing tasks that the DM is presenting to them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Whereas to me, this is just a DM curated menu. The DM can always just say, "no, there are no celestial plume dealers here". After all, the original example was, "No, there are no Spelljammer ships here".

Fair enough. Like I said, I disagree, but it still isn't linear in that case

 

[Lanefan]

Whereas to me, this is just a DM curated menu. The DM can always just say, "no, there are no celestial plume dealers here". After all, the original example was, "No, there are no Spelljammer ships here".

If the DM pitched a campaign in setting X and the players, after accepting this and starting play, want to jump it over to setting Y then something bigger has gone wrong.

And I think it's well within a DM's rights to say "No, guys, I'm running in setting X. I [for whatever reason(s)] don't want to run setting Y; if I did that's what I would have pitched in the first place."

A DM saying something like this can still run her setting-X game as a full sandbox.

 

[mamba]

Then it would be absolutely a non-linear series of adventures. But, now you're shifting the goalposts. The scenario as presented isn't this. It's a lockstep, linear series of scenarios that the GM offers to the players. The players cannot skip any of the steps since each step is needed to be completed before proceeding to the next step. Thus, linear.

I do not see this as goalpost shifting so much as asking a question and believing that you misunderstood how we arrived at A, B, C, then D.

It was the players choosing to do these things in that order out of more available options, just like I said you have A-G for the starting player, H-R for the next step and S-Z for the one thereafter.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But, there is no actual reason for the GM to say yes. After all, the GM is "preserving his setting". So, if the players ask for anything that the GM feels doesn't fit, then the answer is automatically no. So, the players begin playing 20 Questions to determine where that border is, and, once that's fairly established, can potentially ask questions to add stuff to the setting.

First off, preserving the setting isn't necessary the only goal here. But even if it were, it is perfectly reasonable that the answer is going to be Yes at times, no at others. People can dismiss these styles by using terms like 20 questions (which I think most adherence of sandbox would reject, but whatever). But the fact remains the players are able to probe and steer campaign direction this way. It just isn't direct control of setting. Things do go through the GM.

Meanwhile they are apparently doing all of this while actually exploring the setting that is presented and, unless there's some bizarreness going on, are very unlikely to out of the blue ask for things that are unrelated to whatever it is they are doing now. There will always be a reason for asking if there is a Celestial Plume seller and that reason will nearly always be as a result of something the GM has placed in the setting. The players need that Plume because of some task they are undertaking. The task, meanwhile, is selected from the menu that the GM presents.

Players can do whatever they want in the sandbox. I always get questions like "Hey is there a town nearby". "Does the town have X". And I frequently get players trying to do all kinds of things that go well beyond basic exploration. And none of it feels like a menu.

Again, none of this is saying that sandboxing is bad. I love sandboxing. I'm doing it right now. I've done it in the past. What I don't do though is try to pretend that sandboxing is some completely different animal from other traditional RPG campaign types. It's still the players exploring the DM authored setting, performing tasks that the DM is presenting to them.

We just disagree on this characterization.

I am not pretending sandboxing is a different animal. It is just one adventure structure among many that you can use. Sometimes I run sandboxes, sometimes I run other things. And sandboxes have features of other types of campaigns (it isn't reinventing the wheel or anything). But there are expectations players will have if you offer and sandbox, and there are prep steps you are going to want to take that will be different from planning for other types of campaigns.

 

[pemerton]

Are we operating on the assumption that not moving beyond the GM's "menu", as you call it, means your players have no agency?

Well, you're probably not!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do not see this as goalpost shifting so much as asking a question and believing that you misunderstood how we arrived at A, B, C, then D.

It was the players choosing to do these things in that order out of more available options, just like I said you have A-G for the starting player, H-R for the next step and S-Z for the one thereafter.

If the DM is still setting "you can select from A-G until you've done all of them", that doesn't at all look like a "sandbox" to me.

It looks like a theme park. You can go to any attraction you like, but once you've had your fill of ride C, there's no reason to go back to it.

Like...that's the core issue here. "Pick any three you want from A-G, which I the DM have prepared" doesn't strike me as a sandbox. It strikes me as a DM offering choices, certainly, but not actually a sandbox where the players hold the reins. It's still a DM-prepared, DM-curated menu. They just get somewhat more freedom.

Consider the following sliding scale of rails vs freedom:

1. Dragonlance-style railroad where players play specific premade PCs acting out a specific plot
2. More wide-ranging railroad where the PCs moment-to-moment are fully under player control, but the adventure won't change
3. Secret railroad where the players think they have choices, but every choice is bent toward the DM's pre-planned arc
4. Soft railroad, where the PCs choose the order of the adventures, but still have to do all of them
5. Branching paths, but only in limited ways that are all DM-prepared--DM develops each a bit, and then fills in once PCs choose
6. "Deck" of adventures, where the DM has filled the deck, but the order isn't decided by anybody
7. "Menu" of adventures, where PCs select three proverbial appetizers from a list, three entrees from a list, three sides, etc., etc.
8. "Organic" adventures, where DM solicits player ideas, then develops adventures from them for players to choose between
9. Pseudo-sandbox (often mistaken for full), world is nailed down pretty hard in advance but evolves in response to PC acts
10. Full sandbox, where PCs are fully in control of what they do, where they go, and why they care

Most of these are of course my terms. A "menu" adventure is certainly more freeform than not. But "sandbox" is on the extreme end of freeform adventure, combining characteristics of most things in the bottom three/four of the list above. Saying that a menu of adventures isn't a sandbox doesn't mean that it's therefore a rigid and inflexible railroad. It just means that it isn't all the way to "sandbox" yet.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, you're probably not!

Good instinct.