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

[Hussar]

You really hornet clarified the example though before. But this isn't how most people run sandboxes. Why would I not allow them to pursue other avenues of discovering this information and getting to the Spelljammer ship

Again, I think your autocorrect is having its way with you.

Sigh. This does nicely illustrate why the conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

1. Example of sandbox play is a clear example of linear play.
2. Deny that it's linear repeatedly, despite being proven that it's linear.
3. Change the example to add in new elements absent from the original example to prove why the original example wasn't linear.
4. Ignore the fact that even with the changes, it's still 100% linear. You must proceed from A to B to C, even if you can choose a different A starting point.

Granted, why would the players choose a new starting point? The players asked you how to get to Nexus. You told them to go see the Sage Basil Exposition to find the portal to the Nexus.

Players then say, "Nope, we don't want to go to see Basil, what else you got?" And, in your mind, a sandbox DM will then create a completely new path to get from A to D. Granted that new path is completely linear as well, but, apparently that's what sandbox adventures are?

 

[Hussar]

there were no other options because those were the steps described after the fact, ie this is what the players did, not what they could have done. This was pointed out more than once, you just ignored or missed it

No, this was a hypothetical situation, not a play report. Ahh, that might explain why you are failing to understand.

 

[Hussar]

And are these sandboxes, in your opinion?

Oh, very much so. My Ironsworn game started with a village that had exactly one NPC made. Everything else was 100% developed during play. I might have made suggestions from time to time, but, pretty much the players had complete freedom to do anything they liked and the system 100% supported them doing so.

Granted, before the overly pedantic, there were still limits of genre and whatnot. But, that's not really what we're talking about is it?

 

[gban007]

And in minecraft, in players want to go to the End to fight the Ender dragon, there are linear steps they have to go through, so I guess Minecraft isn't a sandbox game, just a game of various linear paths players can choose from.

 

[Hussar]

Being flexible and trying to set up situations that resonate with my players is how I try to run my games. Nothing in the D&D rules contradicts that approach.

So what do other games do that are supposed to allow a sandbox that is somehow not possible in D&D?

well, put it this way.

How many hours do you spend developing your sandbox? I spent 15 minutes preparing for a three month campaign. That's it. I had three months of play prepped in about 15 minutes. Maybe half an hour because I like my game to be pretty.

You have an NPC wizard. How long does it take to stat out an NPC wizard in D&D? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour for a high level one? Yeah, in the time it takes to prep a single encounter in D&D, I prepped an entire campaign in Ironsworn. That's why I consider something like Ironsworn a much better game for doing sandboxing. The idea that I have to write an entire campaign world, that I actually NEED a campaign world before play starts is why I consider D&D a poor sandbox game. D&D just requires far, far too much work on the part of the DM to be very good at allowing the freedom of choice that sandboxing requires.

 

[Hussar]

I don't see how that affects whether or not a game allows for sandbox play. All I see is a preference for a different game with different approach to resolving out of combat challenges.

People keep insisting other games allow sandboxes and D&D doesn't. Just trying to figure out what they think makes a difference. What makes a sandbox a sandbox is having real options and the choices having real impact on the direction of the campaign.

No. At least, that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that D&D is not a very good sandbox game. It certainly can be done. Obviously since people do it. But, it takes a freaking MOUNTAIN of work to pull it off in anything other than the most facile way. If you'll notice that most of the folks who talk about their sandbox campaigns are talking about game worlds that they've been using and developing for years, if not decades. They're talking about being able to leverage resources - spare NPC's, spare locations, spare whatever - that has been years and again sometimes, decades in the making.

If it takes years or even decades to run D&D as a sandbox, then, I don't think it's terribly unfair to say that D&D is not a particularly good game to run as a sandbox. Not that it's impossible. Just that there are games out there that do it much better. And, what people call sandboxes and non-linear tends to have some... idiosyncratic definitions going on.

 

[Faolyn]

well, put it this way.

How many hours do you spend developing your sandbox? I spent 15 minutes preparing for a three month campaign. That's it. I had three months of play prepped in about 15 minutes. Maybe half an hour because I like my game to be pretty.

You have an NPC wizard. How long does it take to stat out an NPC wizard in D&D? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour for a high level one? Yeah, in the time it takes to prep a single encounter in D&D, I prepped an entire campaign in Ironsworn. That's why I consider something like Ironsworn a much better game for doing sandboxing. The idea that I have to write an entire campaign world, that I actually NEED a campaign world before play starts is why I consider D&D a poor sandbox game. D&D just requires far, far too much work on the part of the DM to be very good at allowing the freedom of choice that sandboxing requires.

Ironsworn sounds like a faster game for sandboxing. That doesn't necessarily mean it's better. Your world sounds neither particularly broad nor deep. And while you don't need a thoroughly fleshed-out world for a sandbox, it's also not something you can't have.

Which may be the point, in Ironsworn. Maybe you only develop places and people when you get to them. But that's not the same thing as being a sandbox; that just means it's a game that requires a lot of improv.

Let's say it takes, heck, an hour to stat a higher-level wizard. OK--that doesn't make the game not a sandbox. Even if you thoroughly flesh out the wizard's towers and minions and the various things involving them that might be of interest to the PCs, that still can be a sandbox, because the definition of a sandbox is that you're not telling the PCs where to go and what to do. The players may never meet the wizard, because they never choose to go in that direction. It could be a waste of time creating them--unless you enjoy that sort of thing, in which case it isn't.

 

[Hussar]

I mean, if you want non-linear sandbox games, might I recommend any of the better 4X games out there? Stellaris is about as non-linear sandbox as you could possibly play. There's a million end states, non of which could be predicted from the outset and the path to those end states are too numerous to list.

But, let's be honest, no PnP RPG will ever come even remotely close to that level of complexity in play. It just can't. So, we have to gloss over a lot of the complexity. Which means that someone (typically the DM) will be presenting a suite of options for the players to choose from. Even in the example of King Bob, how the DM presents King Bob will largely dictate how the players react to him. If King Bob the Wise is a good and just leader of the nation and asks the players nicely with a nice reward, to go retrieve that MacGuffin, most parties probably will.

OTOH, if King Bob the Terrible kicks puppies and eats kittens, the players are likely going to interact with King Bob is a somewhat different manner.

My point is, the idea that the players have all this freedom is largely overstating things. There's some real constraints on the freedom. The amount of work the DM is willing to put into the campaign for one will seriously curtail the number of options the players will be presented with. The willingness of the DM to entertain additions and suggestions from the players will also affect the freedom. IOW, it's a spectrum. From what I call a true sandbox where the system literally allows the players complete freedom over the development of their characters, the setting and the entire campaign, all the way on the other end with a lockstep linear path adventure where the players will follow one single path. And most games will fall somewhere along that spectrum at different points in the campaign.

 

[gban007]

No. At least, that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that D&D is not a very good sandbox game. It certainly can be done. Obviously since people do it. But, it takes a freaking MOUNTAIN of work to pull it off in anything other than the most facile way. If you'll notice that most of the folks who talk about their sandbox campaigns are talking about game worlds that they've been using and developing for years, if not decades. They're talking about being able to leverage resources - spare NPC's, spare locations, spare whatever - that has been years and again sometimes, decades in the making.

If it takes years or even decades to run D&D as a sandbox, then, I don't think it's terribly unfair to say that D&D is not a particularly good game to run as a sandbox. Not that it's impossible. Just that there are games out there that do it much better. And, what people call sandboxes and non-linear tends to have some... idiosyncratic definitions going on.

Certainly if creating own world, it would take a lot of time, albeit the campaigns themselves may help flesh it out.
That is why I relied on forgotten realms when doing sandbox, as most of work was done for me and i could just reference the many 3rd edition supplements they had filled out to flesh out things whatever direction the players chose.
Ironsworn does sound interesting though for creating own view of it as such. Are there any quickstart rules or the like to get a feel for the system?

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Let's say it takes, heck, an hour to stat a higher-level wizard. OK--that doesn't make the game not a sandbox. Even if you thoroughly flesh out the wizard's towers and minions and the various things involving them that might be of interest to the PCs, that still can be a sandbox, because the definition of a sandbox is that you're not telling the PCs where to go and what to do. The players may never meet the wizard, because they never choose to go in that direction. It could be a waste of time creating them--unless you enjoy that sort of thing, in which case it isn't.

No, what makes it not a sandbox is that the amount of work required to create all that precludes the game from ever happening at all because the DM just doesn't have the time. And, if your game needs all that work just to be able to run the sandbox, then a game where you can do all that without actually needing all that prep and still get the same results is, IMO, better.

Note, when you talk about depth, that simply comes over time. The longer you play, the more depth develops in the setting. But, instead of all depth coming from a single source like in a Trad game like D&D, that depth comes from everyone at the table.

A sandbox that doesn't work on a lot of impov means that it requires a mountain of effort from the DM. Great for those who want to spend hours and hours on their game worlds but, not something I particularly find conducive to running sandboxes.