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

[Bedrockgames]

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.

Keep in mind though people still prep for a lot of non sandbox games too (because sandbox often eschews things like linear adventure air really heavily structured adventure in general, some of the prep can be easier). The common wisdom for a typical campaign used to be 1 hour of prep for every 2 hours of play (though I have heard different formulations). With sandbox most of the prep is front loaded before the campaign begins. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is as I don’t time it, but it ja probably a lot in the weeks leading up to running the thing (and I am sure some I have spent months on if I had time: for instance if another player in the group was running a campaign). But once the campaign started I probably did about an hour a week of prep (sometimes thirty minutes). This might increase some weeks if I have to create a bunch of stuff. The key is though this definitely a style for someone who enjoys then prep. If one finds prep tedious the. I would!’t recommend a sandbox (or I might suggest a more contained sandbox).

I can say what is most annoying about sandboxes: the record keeping. That is true in any game but I find myself having to be especially focused on it in a sandbox. If you take bad notes, that can be a nightmare in a sandbox (we used to record our sessions just so we would have a record). If you start taking bad notes, aren’t organized with record keeping or if something catastrophic happens to your binder or computer, things can fall apart very easily

 

[mamba]

The thread has morphed into something entirely different.

except that the post I replied to contained

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

 

[mamba]

Well, they seem unfamiliar enough that you mis-stated them in your post!

no, I summarized them, I did not quote them verbatum

To the contrary: advancement in D&D does not depend on facing a range of difficulties

agreed, it does not depend on it, it just happens anyway

If a player has written the Belief for their PC, I will find a spelljammer!, then - as per the rules that I've quoted - the GM's job is to frame scenes that speak to this Belief and put it under pressure.

and how much pressure it is put under is decided how and what does ‘pressure’ mean here, well protected, remote and dangerous location, hard to even learn about it? If it is decided by the DM then we are back to D&D

How was it decided that the peddler had an angel feather in your example?

In general, there would be much less "breadcrumb following" than is typical in D&D. The rules of Burning Wheel preclude no-stakes scenes with tests that serve no purpose other than leading to more no-stakes scenes.

ok, that is what I meant by permissive DM then

 

[pemerton]

no, I summarized them, I did not quote them verbatum

You didn't summarise them, though! You mis-stated the rule for rolling - by stating the 5e D&D rule (uncertainty, as decided by the GM) rather than the BW rule (stakes/conflict, as determined by the player's priorities for their PC). And you mis-stated the rule for consequences, which put intent front and centre.

and how much pressure it is put under is decided how and what does ‘pressure’ mean here, well protected, remote and dangerous location, hard to even learn about it? If it is decided by the DM then we are back to D&D

How was it decided that the peddler had an angel feather in your example?

Pressure means pressure on the player's priorities. In the example I posted, the player's relevant Belief was that he would not leave Hardby without a magic item to use against his brother. So, as GM, I framed a scene in which that Belief was put under pressure: an angel feather for sale, in a context where the PCs are poor and one has a Belief to acquire money rather than spend it.

I think your claim that this is the same as breadcrumb-trail, quest-giver D&D play is mistaken. This sort of D&D play depends upon no- or low-stakes scenes and action declarations whose main purpose is to lead the PCs through scenes that eventually lead to the real stakes.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
What this means is that any examples given of the latter are almost certainly non-published homebrew campaigns, all too easily dismissed as anecdotes by those who wish to do so.

The reason for the comparisons being different is degrees of freedom. Even in a fully Jacquaysed dungeon you're still in a dungeon and, absent means of cutting new passages or passing through stone, you kinda have to stay between the walls. But out in the greater setting, if it's a true sandbox there's either no walls to stay between or those walls are so far away that the odds of ever hitting one are remote at best.

It's a spectrum, sure, but I do think sandbox and linear are at the opposite ends of said spectrum.

Kinda sorta. I mean, I ran the World's Largest Dungeon some years ago. That's about as sandboxy as you can get. You start in room A1 and there are about ten thousand rooms to explore (possibly more, I never actually counted) and there isn't much in the way of any sort of over arching plot. But, again, in play, it tends not to work that way because once the players get into a particular direction, it does become a lot more linear. They decide to achieve whatever goal and a lot of times, once that goal is set, the steps to achieving that goal become rather linear. So, while, yes, there are infinite (or at least a freaking LOT) of choices the players could make, once the rubber meets the road, play tends to be a lot more linear in resolution.

I guess my point is if you put linear and sandbox on opposite ends of the spectrum, well, that's a pretty narrow spectrum.

hypothetical or not, this was one way to get there, not the only one. We do not even know if the DM said ‘go see this sage, he might he able to help’ or the players had the idea and created that sage out of whole cloth.

We disagree on who is misunderstanding this…

Considering this is MY BLOODY EXAMPLE, there's no real question about who is misunderstanding the example.

 

[TiQuinn]

except that the post I replied to contained

I understand that but one also does not have to accept Hussar's premise that sandbox vs. linear play has anything to do with conservatism in gaming.

 

[AlViking]

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.

So you have a preferred system. That has nothing to do with whether or not the game being run is a sandbox. I can't answer how long it takes for me to prep for a campaign for two reasons. First is that most of the time is just me noodling on options in the shower. Second is that I don't plan out campaigns nor do I plan out an entire world. I think about high level stuff in the area the characters currently are, what's going on and potential hooks for where they might be going. I never plan out a campaign, I plan out what is most likely for the next session or two. If they really go off on a tangent into areas I hadn't thought about I'll improvise.

Nothing I plan or outline is set in stone unless and until it's brought into focus by the decisions the players make. I did some searching on what a sandbox means for a different post and came across this post, which I think describes what I want out of a sandbox game. "The story is created at the table, as you play, rather than being planned out beforehand. The world reacts to your character, and your character can have major impacts on the world." I've been doing that in D&D for years.

 

[AlViking]

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.

I just responded but I completely disagree. It takes me less time to run a sandbox campaign than it would to run a linear campaign or to use a module. Maybe there should be a "How to run a sandbox campaign" thread because your claims on amount of effort it takes do not bare any resemblance to mine.

 

[Eric V]

I just responded but I completely disagree. It takes me less time to run a sandbox campaign than it would to run a linear campaign or to use a module. Maybe there should be a "How to run a sandbox campaign" thread because your claims on amount of effort it takes do not bare any resemblance to mine.

Do you just improv a lot?

 

[AlViking]

None. That's the point. Sometimes campaigns are linear. Sometimes they are not. But, this claim that "sandboxes allow players to do whatever they want" tends to get overblown. And, frankly, the difference between a linear AP and a sandbox is a lot less than people want to admit.

To me, the comparison is linear and non-linear scenarios. At that level, I totally can see the difference. And it's easy to illustrate. Two dungeons. One is a series of 4 chambers A-B-C-D. There's no plausible way to do the adventure in any other order. That's a linear dungeon. Second dungeon has 4 rooms, each room connecting to the other three rooms. The dungeon can be entered at any point, A through D. That's about as non-linear as you can make it.

The opposite of sandbox isn't linear. They are both just points on a spectrum of number of player choices.

No game I've ever played that had an established structure allows the player to "do whatever they want". I also don't think deciding which chamber to enter in what order makes a game a sandbox for TTRPGs. It may be as close as you can get for most CRPGs, the that's different. For me, it's "They have multiple options to pursue and what options are available next likely change based on what happened." Along with "It's a living world that can change for many reasons, not just what the characters do."