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

[Lanefan]

I'm just saying not every game needs to be an interconnected web of prior events to be good.

Paizo runs theirs into the mid and high levels. D&D's varies, but most run about 5-8 levels on average.

Maybe it's just sheer luck, but the (not many) hardcover D&D ones I have from the last few editions seem to be in the 1-12 to 1-15 range. I don't have any complete PF paths, the PF adventures I own were bought with intent of converting-running them as stand-alones even though most of them are in theory part of a path.

Phandelver in the starter box is 1-5, but it's just intended to be a starter and not a whole campaign in itself.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I agree with @Hussar in that system matters a lot.
I run a massive 5e sandbox currently 15th level, there has seen quite a bit of prep work involved (I'm happy to do it, it is part of my fun), but there are also sessions where my prepwork is only 1-2 hours of reading, surfing (for ideas) and making a few notes.
It all depends on the fictional situation; some sessions are easier to prep for than others.

The very last session I had, which was arguably the best RPG session I have had thus far in my 35+ year RPG career, touched on all of @Manbearcat's points in post #2042. There were a lot of other factors involved in making it special, but Manbearcat's post is a good start.

 

[Hussar]

That isn't what I said though. I was acknowledging the challenge that 3E presents. But I wasn't agreeing with your premise that D&D is bad for sandbox. I said 3E presents a big challenge in terms of prep. But 1) You can still do it with 3E if you want, 2) 3E is not all of D&D. It is way different trying to run a sandbox with 3E, 2E/1E, or Basic

Not as good =/= bad.

 

[Hussar]

Sure, which is why you have a stack of published modules ready to rock. If they decide to go to site A you're gonna haul out Secret of Bone Hill, if they go to site B instead then out comes White Plume Mtn., if they go to C they'll find Forge of Fury ready to greet them, and so on and so on.

Again, you are just proving my point. If I need three full modules, just to provide a modicum of choice for the players, that's not a system that's easy to run sandboxes in. If I need a raft of random generators, pages of notes, and adventures, just to get through the next four hours of play, then that's not an easy system to run sandboxes in.

How much evidence is needed here?

 

[Remathilis]

Maybe it's just sheer luck, but the (not many) hardcover D&D ones I have from the last few editions seem to be in the 1-12 to 1-15 range. I don't have any complete PF paths, the PF adventures I own were bought with intent of converting-running them as stand-alones even though most of them are in theory part of a path.

Phandelver in the starter box is 1-5, but it's just intended to be a starter and not a whole campaign in itself.

I'll make a caveat that some of the WotC 5e APs aren't true 1 to X level affairs because the first few levels are literally power-leveling to get to the correct level. (Storm Kings Thunder was really bad for this because levels 1-5 are handled in one chapter, in the back of the book, as an afterthought). That said, Spelljammer is 5-9, Planescape is 3-10 and then a jump to 18, Vecna starts at 10, Witchlight is 1-8. Not all are 1-12+ affairs.

 

[AlViking]

Again, you are just proving my point. If I need three full modules, just to provide a modicum of choice for the players, that's not a system that's easy to run sandboxes in. If I need a raft of random generators, pages of notes, and adventures, just to get through the next four hours of play, then that's not an easy system to run sandboxes in.

How much evidence is needed here?

Except there is no evidence other than different people prep in different ways. I've tried using a module as a basis for my sandbox basically once as far as I can remember. Then the players decided they would go do an urban city adventure instead. I've borrowed an NPC or encounter design here and there but unless I'm running a session at a game day or con I've always done my own thing.

The players always have choices in my games, it's always something I've just come up with myself or that they want to pursue. The reason I do it this way is that because for me it's actually less work, less I have to remember what someone else designed and it's more flexible because I understand the NPCs and organizations I create. I've run a lot of sessions for game days and cons, my homebrew sandbox games takes far less prep time even for a single session. For an entire campaign? I'd have to read through the book, understand all the moving pieces, remember what hints to drop and never improvise. Meanwhile for my home game I know who's who and I outline what they're thinking and doing a session or two ahead. It's night and day easier.

In theory I may spend more time on my home campaign but it's things I'm thinking about when I'm bored, taking a shower, driving, trying to fall asleep, doing other activities that don't require concentration and focus. Then when I get a chance I jot down a couple of notes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Not as good =/= bad.

Fair enough but I wasn’t agreeing with ‘not as good’ either.

 

[CellarHeroes]

Again, you are just proving my point. If I need three full modules, just to provide a modicum of choice for the players, that's not a system that's easy to run sandboxes in. If I need a raft of random generators, pages of notes, and adventures, just to get through the next four hours of play, then that's not an easy system to run sandboxes in.

How much evidence is needed here?

Those few things aren't just getting you through the next four hours of play...it's getting you through the next 400 hours of play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yet again you're conflating adventure design with campaign design.

They are not the same.

All the discussion around sandbox vs anything else is on the level of campaign design. There's really no such thing as a sandbox adventure; there's Jacquaysed adventures, and there's linear adventures, and there's some that kinda do both.

Sure, which is why you have a stack of published modules ready to rock. If they decide to go to site A you're gonna haul out Secret of Bone Hill, if they go to site B instead then out comes White Plume Mtn., if they go to C they'll find Forge of Fury ready to greet them, and so on and so on. And if they decide to just roam around in the wilderness then random encounter tables are Your Friend.

The sandbox part is their deciding which sites if any they're going to go to, how they're going to get there, what they're going to do on the way, whether they let themselves get sidetracked into something else, how they approach the adventure once they're on site, and so forth.

I gotta say, this is like an advert for the truth of the OP. My 1977 self totally gets you. Sadly, the world has changed... Well, some parts of it have.

The RPG discussion group at my workplace is interesting. There are a lot of participants (LARGE organization). Some simply cannot imagine anything beyond 1979ish, others speak an entirely different language and play a lot different games. I've never detected the sort of rancor I see around here though. Someone suggests some one-shots, I suggest some PbtA or other, someone else is entirely sure they want to do it with D&D. Result could go either way, or both. No fur flies. Could never have that discussion here.

 

[The Firebird]

Wow.

When I said this, I was pilloried for saying that you need to do massive amounts of legwork in order to actually have a sandbox. Yet, you say exactly the same thing, and no one bats an eye. I mean, you are flat out saying that unless you've done all this legwork, it's not really a sandbox campaign, in direct contradiction to quite a number of posters here who claim to run sandboxes.

That statement wasn't mine but a quote from a separate essay, and it's not being offered as a hard classifier. In the context of the essay its deliberately provocative and offered with a little wink, more to encourage people to think about the subject than to say someone is running it wrong.

I certainly would not say "it's not really a sandbox" about a campaign that is less prepared.

No one bats an eye? I just said I wouldn't have that level of detail. If it works for @The Firebird that's fine, it's their choice, their game. I won't tell someone they're running their game wrong but that doesn't mean there is only one way to run any style of game.

Agree with this.

I am not claiming that it is impossible to do sandboxes in D&D. I am claiming that other systems work better for sandboxes since D&D is so prep heavy. I am also claiming that the difference between sandbox and linear campaigns tends to be a lot less than claimed because of the workload required to prepare a sandbox.

I do think you have a point especially with 5e D&D, and especially with higher level 5e. A lot of sandbox fans end up drifting towards simpler OSR games, and part of that is they're easier to improvise.