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

[Reynard]

There are only so many pages for this you could allocate

The DMG spent 40 pages on the planes and 3 pages on dungeons. Do you think this is a good mix of page use for teaching people how to run D&D?

 

[TiQuinn]

I haven't been able to summon the enthusiasm to write about Vecna, but here's my take on The Shattered Obelisk

Review: The Shattered Obelisk - Merric's Musings

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk is a 2023 campaign adventure published by Wizards of the Coast that takes characters from levels 1 through 12. It incorporates the excellent starter set adventure The Lost Mine of Phandelver, and then continues onwards for seven more levels of exciting...

merricb.com

Cheers!

I think there’s something to be said for the idea that Vecna brings out the worst adventures in designers.

Vecna Lives, Vecna Reborn, Die Vecna Die and now Eve of Ruin. Just not a great history of actual published adventures there.

 

[Oofta]

The DMG spent 40 pages on the planes and 3 pages on dungeons. Do you think this is a good mix of page use for teaching people how to run D&D?

I've explained what I think and why.

 

[MerricB]

I think there’s something to be said for the idea that Vecna brings out the worst adventures in designers.

Vecna Lives, Vecna Reborn, Die Vecna Die and now Eve of Ruin. Just not a great history of actual published adventures there.

I've actually run Vecna Lives! - while it is flawed, I would take it over Eve of Ruin!

(Apart from anything else: the adventure felt like it was about Vecna!)

 

[Older Beholder]

Given sandbox style games are still very common in videogaming, I think there will always be people taking influence from that and trying to emulate the experience in TTRPG's. If a sandbox was your intended goal, there's still useful advice in the new DMG that would help someone run a game like that.

 

[nevin]

I was reading through the 2024 DMG Adventure and Campaign chapters and something occurred to me: the DMG does not include player driven sandbox campaigning as mode of campaign play. The campaign framework that the DMG describes in detail and strongly advocates for is one of prepared adventures and established campaign throughlines. It offers some support for travel and exploration, but not a focus of play. Similarly, it mentions player goals in passing, but otherwise does not spend any time of establishing what this looks like as a way to play the game.

(As an aside, there is a surprising lack of support for dungeon play in general given the name of the game, and absolutely nothing about long term dungeon exploration.)

Why does this matter? Because this DMG is clearly designed to be the onboarding product for new DMs, and as such its lessons are going to have a long term impact on the culture of play. The advice in the DMG, especially coupled with the structures and premises of the evergreen adventures new DMs are likely to run, establishes a D&D campaign as a television show with a series long narrative and "season" stories.

I am not saying that this is a bad structure for a campaign. It is a good structure, in fact. But it is not the only structure, and player driven sandbox exploration wherein "stories" emerge from play is a foundation, important and still excellent way to play the game. I am afraid that new GMs will not be exposed to that style of campaign and eventually it will mostly die out (in the same way that the megadungeon mostly died out in official D&D).

I am sure many of you will think I'm nitpicking, being negative or just plain wrong. If the latter, what in the 2024 DMG do you think advocates for and helps support the sandbox playstyle? With any explicit example, how will new DMs discover and produce sandbox campaigns?

Even if you agree with me: what would you add for DMs for sandbox play? How would you alter or add to the Adventure and Campaign chapters, or elsewhere?

ALSO: Let's agree to not center a discussion around the idea that experienced DMs can just ignore the advice and run a sandbox game. Of course they can, but that isn't the point. This is about new DMs.

sandbox DM's probably don't bring in as much money. I think they tend to be more experienced and less likely to care if they are doing it the "right" way.

 

[Older Beholder]

I'm also not sure it's a style I'd recommend for a new DM.

 

[Oofta]

Given sandbox style games are still very common in videogaming, I think there will always be people taking influence from that and trying to emulate the experience in TTRPG's. If a sandbox was your intended goal, there's still useful advice in the new DMG that would help someone run a game like that.

What would you consider a sandbox video game?

 

[pukunui]

What would you consider a sandbox video game?

Isn't that like Skyrim and the other Elder Scrolls games?

 

[Older Beholder]

What would you consider a sandbox video game?

Probably something broader than is accepted here?
I was going by the wiki definition...

A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may lack any objective, and are sometimes referred to as non-games or software toys. More often, sandbox games result from these creative elements being incorporated into other genres and allowing for emergent gameplay.

Something like GTA San Andreas would be a good example, I guess.