D&D 5E (2024) DMG 2024: Is The Sandbox Campaign Dead?

[MerricB]

Have the designers ever used the chase rules in a streamed game or anything? I'd love to see how they use them because I can't get them to work in a satisfying way.

I say this every time, but the Season 2 AL adventure "Cloaks and Shadows" includes a much better set of chase rules that I really wish they'd make the default.

I doubt it.

I think there was also a chase in the Chult season of DDAL that worked pretty well. But my opinion of Crawford as a rules designer has been dropping, and dropping fast with the 2024 releases.

 

[Shardstone]

Have the designers ever used the chase rules in a streamed game or anything? I'd love to see how they use them because I can't get them to work in a satisfying way.

I say this every time, but the Season 2 AL adventure "Cloaks and Shadows" includes a much better set of chase rules that I really wish they'd make the default.

Can you describe them for me?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the lore glossary was a good idea, there's a tendency for people who have been with the hobby for a while (not just grognards) to make references to a lot of things. Heck, the modules and core books make such references on a regular basis. It's hard for someone who has been playing for years just how intimidating not knowing anything at all about D&D or it's history can be.

Reading a lot of things about D&D can feel like the following for people new to the game
View attachment 393055

I don't understand the picture. Is this supposed to be edifying?

 

[OB1]

Random encounter tables.
Faction relationship maps.
Tools for other random/procedural generation.
Sandboxes require all of these things.

Got it, guess we just have different needs to run a sandbox, those things you mention are all things I do on my own. So from my perspective, sandbox play is alive and well in '24 (as it was in 14).

The Dungeon Dudes Drakenheim setting for 5e sounds exactly like what you are looking for.

 

[pukunui]

But my opinion of Crawford as a rules designer has been dropping, and dropping fast with the 2024 releases.

Hmm. I'm not particularly impressed by any of the D&D creative team at this point. I reckon Perkins is overrated as a "celebrity DM", and Hamon really bungled the Phandalin book and didn't do much better with the Vecna book.

Can you describe them for me?

They are similar to the default 5e chase rules, with the main difference being that they use a more abstract zone mechanic for movement, which I find works better.

Spoiler

• Track the distances between the pursued and each pursuer in five steps: adjacent, close, medium, far and extreme.
• Each participant makes a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check at the end of its turn to stay in the chase. A pursuer move one step backwards on a failed check, dropping out the chase if he or she falls beyond extreme range. If the pursued fails their check, all pursuers move one step closer.
• On a success of 15 or higher, a pursuer moves on step closer. If the pursued scores 15 or higher, all pursuers fall back one step.
• All participants can take an action on their turn to attack or cast a spell, but doing so counts as a failure on their Dexterity check.
• Each participant rolls on the chase complications table at the end of their turn. Complications affect the next participant in the initiative order, not the participant who rolled. Either participant may spend inspiration to negate the result.

Use common sense to bend the rules as necessary. For example, a character with a high fly speed may advance
two steps on a good success instead of one. The chase ends when the characters defeat the pursued or when no pursuers remain in the running.

The complications table mainly involves things that either allow a chase participant to move forward or fall back a zone or two. Some involve taking damage as well. Here are two examples:

• Crash into a wall! Take 5 (1d10) bludgeoning damage and drop back two steps in the chase.
• Sudden gust of wind! Make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to move forward one step in the chase. On a failed check, drop back one step in the chase.

 

[MerricB]

Hmm. I'm not particularly impressed by any of the D&D creative team at this point. I reckon Perkins is overrated as a "celebrity DM", and Hamon really bungled the Phandalin book and didn't do much better with the Vecna book.

Vecna is a terrible book. Shattered Obelisk is a terrible book with actually worse editing. I can see in both examples of good game design, but the overall structure is awful - and that's the stuff Hamon should be responsible for.

And yeah, I have little time left for Perkins either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t think they ever have done, nor TSR before them.

I seem to recall several hexcrawl-related products in the TSR era. My favorite is 2e's Worldbuilder's Guidebook.

The idea that has been expounded upon so well in the last decade with the OSR movement and others didn't come out of no where, after all.

 

[pukunui]

Vecna is a terrible book. Shattered Obelisk is a terrible book with actually worse editing. I can see in both examples of good game design, but the overall structure is awful - and that's the stuff Hamon should be responsible for.

Exactly! I haven't finished reading the Vecna book, but I'll probably end up just using it for parts.

I didn't think much of Princes of the Apocalypse when it first came out. It was badly edited as well, and I felt it would get too repetitive after a while, but the quality of many of the newer adventures has put PotA in a more favorable light in my mind.

Plus, to keep this comment on topic: PotA has a decent sandbox. Not as good as Tomb of Annihilation but better than Descent into Avernus and maybe also Rime of the Frostmaiden. I've played through Avernus but haven't fully read/played Frostmaiden yet.


I still regard Scourge of the Sword Coast as one of the best ever D&D adventures, and it dates from the D&D Next playtest era, which is kinda sad. Like, few of the adventures published for 5e proper have been as good as that one, which I think is seriously underrated. It's reasonably sandboxy, Daggerford is a decent hub town with plenty of interesting NPCs and side plots, and every adventure location is deliciously jaquaysed. The only real downside to Scourge is that it kind of fizzles out at the end because the "real" ending is the beginning of the sequel, Dead in Thay. The part that unfortunately got left out of the updated version in the Yawning Portal anthology.

 

[MerricB]

Exactly! I haven't finished reading the Vecna book, but I'll probably end up just using it for parts.

I've run both (mostly as written) in full.

They are exactly as dreadful in play as you might expect.

Cheers!

 

[Minigiant]

Disagree. The whole point of sandboxes is that player agency is high, relative to an adventure-path or scripted-campaign setup.

Let me correct myself.

The player's agency is high. Their success rate of that agency varies depending on the type of sandbox.

5e has too much high success or even auto-success effects tied to plentiful resources for low power sandboxes to be fun.