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

[Lanefan]

I think even D&D doesn't have to be quite as dungeon-focused as this question seems to imply.

It's still for the most part adventure-focused, though. Not every adventure has to be a dungeon crawl (though admittedly the examples I threw out earlier all are); there's wilderness adventures, heists*, intrigue-based adventures, etc.

* - noted as I'm currently halfway through reading the 5e hardcover Keys to the Vault, a collection of a dozen or so small standalone heist-style adventures for a big range of character levels. So far of the six-ish I've read only one looks vaguely like a typical underground dungeon; most of the targets seem to be in buildings of some sort.

 

[Lanefan]

Fair enough. But, again, "I don't want efficiency or ease so I'll use D&D to create sandboxes with" is hardly praising D&D is it?

But, see, that's the thing. I've never said that you can't do it. I've just said that there are easier ways to do it. And, frankly, it seems that there is a lot of agreement out there. People running sandboxes aren't using 5e D&D - @Lanefan and @Bedrockgames are not using 5e D&D, for example. It doesn't look like @Bedrockgames is using D&D at all from that example. Not sure what system that is (although it does look cool).

When the biggest proponents of using D&D to run sandboxes aren't actually using D&D, then, well, saying that other systems make running sandboxes easier shouldn't be all that contentious.

So if it ain't 5e it ain't D&D, is that what you're saying?

If so, batten the hatches, as I suspect that might be a controversial take.....

 

[Lanefan]

Wow, that sounds like the most boring adventure I've seen. A couple of stat blocks for six encounters? Maybe a pet? No NPC's, no prisoners, nothing? Sure, if we're going to make the most basic, prosaic, boring adventures possible, then sure. No worries.

It's funny. The first scenario in Lost Mines of Phandelver has 8 encounters. The Cragmaw hideout. Now, this is for 1st level characters (note, I notice you immediately chose the simplest, LOWEST level adventure you could to illustrate how easy it was. Let's see you try that with a 9th level party, but, I digress).

My lot - averaging about 8th level - have just started on a homebrew adventure, part of which involves a long journey through a very dangerous swamp just to get there. This swamp is in part populated by some pretty whacked-out creatures - basically (and literally!) genetic experiments gone wild - and so a typical "swamp" or "jungle" random encounter chart wasn't going to do.

And so I banged out a custom random encounter chart while eating lunch one day last week. The only hard part was dreaming up enough wacky creatures they might face beyond the ones I'd already hinted at during their info-gathering. Other than that, trivially easy - it took less time than lunch did.

 

[Kromanjon]

Well, if I was doing D&D? I'd have a setting bible with lots of stuff. I'd do the prep work.

Now though? Yeah, I'd likely lean into something like Ironsworn (although, to be fair, that's a fairly narrow genre and not as broad as D&D - I'd have to hunt for another game if I wanted something as encompassing as D&D) where you'd start with a village. Player makes a Move - Gathering Information, for example. On a strong success, I'd make something up that leads them on an adventure. If I had no idea, I'd turn to the rest of the players and ask for options. Or, possibly, Ironsworn does come with an Ask the Oracle mechanic that allows for some random inspiration.

The simplest Ask the Oracle is Yes/No questions. So, in one episode where we did pretty much exactly this, I framed the question - "Is this a supernatural event?" (No) "Is there a mystery?" (Yes). "Is it a murder mystery?" (No) "Missing person?" (Yes)

Ah, ok, I've got enough to work with now. It's just starting out so there is a missing child that needs rescuing. I'm not going to worry too much about the mystery yet, because there's time for that as they progress.

In Ironsworn, when you undertake a quest, you swear an Iron Vow (resolving those vows is how you gain XP to advance your character). So, the players swear - which can fail btw, resulting in more complications. Play progresses from there.

Note, the players could make multiple Gather Knowledge checks and spawn multiple events. As the players progress through a vow, checks can also spawn more complications. So on and so forth.

By the end of the scenario, we could discover (and I'm making this up, this is hypothetical) that the missing child is the illegitimate child of the leader of the town and was taken into the woods Hansel and Gretal style to be eaten by a witch. At the outset of the task, literally no one at the table knows anything. It is all revealed during play.

Basically, an entire couple of sessions of play could easily be generated by a couple of die rolls and some leading questions. Totally sandbox, total player freedom.

Let's see if I'm getting this right. The players take actions (or make moves as some systems call them) and the GM comes up with responses to those actions, improvising when necessary and asking for player input when in doubt. A neutral arbiter in the form of a Oracle might be called to spawn events but those events will not have pre-stated solutions as they will be fleshed out through cooperative storytelling.

Sure sounds like total player freedom though I'll defer from speaking on the sandbox part as the definition of "sandbox" seem to vary wildly from person to person.

If the above is true, what is it that stops one from using any system, including D&D, to play this way?

 

[pemerton]

If the above is true, what is it that stops one from using any system, including D&D, to play this way?

Obviously I'm not @Hussar, but I did offer an answer to this question upthread:

one obstacle to playing 5e D&D in that sort of way is the lack of clear rules and principles for framing and resolving non-combat challenges. This is not an insuperable obstacle, but it's one that a group that wants to run a game with a high degree of player agency will need to tackle.

And that obstacle is actually, probably, two slightly different obstacles: the rules for ability/skill checks (as presented in the rulebooks, these are not very tight; they will need tightening to play in a way similar to the games I mentioned); and the fact that the use of non-combat spells doesn't normally involve any risk of failure, making it hard to incorporate their use into the overall dynamic of play other than by way of GM fiat. (4e D&D deals with this issue by having ritual use just be one move within the context of a skill challenge.)

I also made a comparison to Burning Wheel:

I imagine it is possible to play 5e D&D so that the action is centred around player-authored priorities for their PCs. As I posted, the game doesn't have a clear obstacle system outside of combat, and so some work/adaption would be required to play it in a fashion that lets the obstacle system guide the outcome.

Ironsworn is different from BW, but I suspect also has features that 5e D&D probably doesn't have (at least by default) which make it easier to use in the way that Hussar has described.

 

[Kromanjon]

Obviously I'm not @Hussar, but I did offer an answer to this question upthread:
I also made a comparison to Burning Wheel:
Ironsworn is different from BW, but I suspect also has features that 5e D&D probably doesn't have (at least by default) which make it easier to use in the way that Hussar has described.

My knowledge of 5e is admittedly severely limited but isn't non-combat challenges handled through simple skill checks vs. a DC? In what way (I would be thankful for examples) is this detrimental to the kind of game earlier described? I'm sure you felt you explained it in the quotes you gave but you might need to dumb it down a bit for me.

 

[pemerton]

My knowledge of 5e is admittedly severely limited but isn't non-combat challenges handled through simple skill checks vs. a DC? In what way (I would be thankful for examples) is this detrimental to the kind of game earlier described? I'm sure you felt you explained it in the quotes you gave but you might need to dumb it down a bit for me.

Most non-combat magic in D&D 5e does not involve any sort of check. And the rule for skill checks is the GM decides if the outcome is uncertain, and if it sets a DC. And the rule for consequences is the GM decides what the consequence is.

In Burning Wheel, the rule for when a check is called for is is something at stake in the scene? And this is in the context of a system in which the GM's express job is to frame scenes that speak to, or put pressure on, player-authored priorities for their PCs. Actions are all framed in terms of intent and task, and on a successful test both are achieved; while on a failed test the GM must narrate a failure of intent (which may or may not involve a failure of task). When a test is called for, there are rules for setting the difficulty based on the task (the rulebook has hundreds of example obstacles).

Ironsworn is at least a cousin of Apocalypse World and Dungeon World, and so I imagine that certain sorts of key action declarations trigger player-side moves, which require a roll and which (on a fail) allow the GM to make as hard and direct a move as they like.

I'm not asserting that it is impossible to introduce variant rules into 5e D&D that will give it the same sort of structure as some of these other RPGs - I don't know 5e well enough to be confident in any such assertion! You could use intent-and-task, stakes-based resolution, for instance (that is, drifting the game in the direction of Burning Wheel). But that would still leave the issue of how to handle non-combat spell-casting. Perhaps this could be done similar to 4e D&D skill challenges?

There are other "stabilising" features of BW that 5e D&D, varied/drifted in this way, would still lack; for instance:

the rules for PC advancement - which you can find in the free core rules download - require the character to face a wide range of tests, from routine through difficult to challenging. Players also have a lot of capacity to vary the size of their dice pools, by augmenting with similar/related/relevant skills (called FoRKs ("Fields of Related Knowledge") in the rules), spending Fate and Persona, and receiving help (which also helps the helper advance). So the system is quite forgiving of the GM's decision-making about how high or low to set a given obstacle.

But their absence wouldn't necessarily be disastrous.

I think trying to take 5e in a Ironsworn direction would be harder, because it doesn't have a PbtA-esque system of player-side moves.

 

[TiQuinn]

Fair enough. But, again, "I don't want efficiency or ease so I'll use D&D to create sandboxes with" is hardly praising D&D is it?

But, see, that's the thing. I've never said that you can't do it. I've just said that there are easier ways to do it. And, frankly, it seems that there is a lot of agreement out there. People running sandboxes aren't using 5e D&D - @Lanefan and @Bedrockgames are not using 5e D&D, for example. It doesn't look like @Bedrockgames is using D&D at all from that example. Not sure what system that is (although it does look cool).

When the biggest proponents of using D&D to run sandboxes aren't actually using D&D, then, well, saying that other systems make running sandboxes easier shouldn't be all that contentious.

I don’t think you get the point at all. But that’s okay.

 

[Hussar]

I find it interesting that you characterise it as sandbox. Not saying I disagree - just that it is a broader usage than I'm familiar with.

Understood thus, probably quite a bit of my RPGing counts as sandbox play.

It depends on the RPG I'm playing. I've got quite a bit of actual play that you can check out if you like - I've linked to it in plenty of threads that you've participated in.

Y'know, I hadn't thought of it that way to be honest. I was using Sandbox to mean player driven non-linear play. Maybe that's where I'm tripping up.

 

[Hussar]

So if it ain't 5e it ain't D&D, is that what you're saying?

If so, batten the hatches, as I suspect that might be a controversial take.....

Oh, come on. That frankengame that you play is barely 1ed, let alone D&D.