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

[TiQuinn]

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.

I mean, that’s Minecraft to a T.

They even have a dragon.

 

[Older Beholder]

I mean, that’s Minecraft to a T.

They even have a dragon.

Yeah, probably one of the best examples.

 

[Umbran]

I have mentioned previously that i don't this this is particularly relevant.

Well, pardon me for disagreeing, I guess. I find it particularly relevant.

However, the 2014 5E DMG includes a bunch of tables and other information that is directly useful in sandbox play that the 2024 DMG does not include. I am not surprised people don't know this, because the 2014 DMG is criminally under read -- despite lots of people criticizing it without having any idea what is in it.

"Directly useful"? Most of all three core books is "directly useful" in sandbox play! That's hardly a point.

But, let's say they gave an entire chapter of tables that would be specifically useful for sandbox play, but didn't tell people anything about sandbox play. Do tables spontaneously generate sandbox play, or something?

Does anyone who already knows how to use the tables and such for sandbox play really need WotC to hand them a table? Or wouldn't assembling their own to match their own sandbox more useful anyway?

 

[Pedantic]

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.

I'd look at both classic roguelikes (or modern games in a similar style, like Caves of Qud) or immersive sims, like Fallout: New Vegas for video game sandboxes. They are both more powerful, in that they can adjudicate the interactions of more complicated systems, and weaker than TTRPGs, in that they can't account for all possibilities as comprehensively as a GM and are generally worse at simulating NPCs.

Personally, I think D&D has been on the path away from sandbox play for much longer than 5e, and this is a natural next step.

 

[Umbran]

Well, I know at least one past DMG has specifically included advice and support for player-DM collaboration to develop personal quests, and actual mechanical rewards for completion of said player-authored quests, so it's not strictly true that absolutely no support has existed before.

"Player authored quests" are not typical of sandbox play as I know and understand it. In bog standard sandbox play, the GM populates the sandbox, and players make choices within it. The players don't author quests - that would be the player populating their own sandbox. Player authored quests are that's more a "neotrad" playstyle element, giving more narrative control to players.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

"Player authored quests" are not typical of sandbox play as I know and understand it. In bog standard sandbox play, the GM populates the sandbox, and players make choices within it. The players don't author quests - that would be the player populating their own sandbox. Player authored quests are that's more a "neotrad" playstyle element, giving more narrative control to players.

I was simply speaking of what the OP mentioned. Sandbox is in the title, yes, but I quoted the OP that referenced things beyond that, with specific nod to player authorship.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Player authored quests" are not typical of sandbox play as I know and understand it. In bog standard sandbox play, the GM populates the sandbox, and players make choices within it. The players don't author quests - that would be the player populating their own sandbox. Player authored quests are that's more a "neotrad" playstyle element, giving more narrative control to players.

I like to split the difference. Most of the sandbox is standard GM-authored locales, but before we begin i talk to the players about what they want to do and make sure the means for them to do it exists in the setting.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think WotC has been pushing storytelling over the "game" for a while now, and I think that harms the popularity of this style of play.

If a group wants the best "narrative" they are going to approach the game in different way. We don't have novels authored by committee or randomly generated from tables for a reason. So as WotC pushes this type of game where the story telling is front and center, and you get new players exposed to Critical Role's tight narratives, the player base moves towards those types of stories. We see this is the growing sentiment, on social media, that DMs are entertainers and not players.

Another poster articulated the idea of open world games, where you have a overarching narrative that is center to the campaign but the players are free to move around the world and interact as they wish. I think this is where a lot of newer players view sandbox games. They think of the idea differently, as they started playing in a different time. This, also, lines up more with the actual plays you see on youtube which influence millions of players.

I also think Ezekiel said something very astute here;



5e's core design lends itself to a different style. Sandbox, in a traditional sense, is possible, but not greatly incentivized in many of the design decisions of the system. I think this is why there is a divide in the perception of 5e. Certain playstyles expose flaws 5e's design, while others don't. The focused narrative games we see in actual plays simply don't have many of the issues with 5e's design as other styles might.

I think WotC decided storytelling was the part of the hobby with the broadest appeal, and leaned into this idea of narrative driven campaigns with 5e. And I think, with the help of Critical Role, the community, mostly, followed.

So I think it's a, somewhat, purposeful move by WotC. And I think they feel rewarded for that move, rightly or wrongly, due to how 5e has panned out sales-wise.

I am of the opinion that 5e is actually extremely poor at facilitating "storytelling." It is, at absolute best, not actively and overtly getting in the way of storytelling.

There's a good reason several of the popular narrative-driven actual plays have gone on to write their own systems rather than sticking with 5e, and that was before the whole "we're altering the [OGL], pray we don't alter it any further" fiasco that kicked off a large interest in alternative systems.

There are plenty of ways, big and small, to actually facilitate a narrative/storytelling approach, with or without player authorship. None of them exist in 5e's rules, to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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

I don’t think a hexcrawl is the same as a sandbox. Lots of published adventures, from very early to very recent, feature hexcrawls. And it’s easy to make one, no instructions required. Classically, it was described as a "wilderness adventure".

But making a sandbox doesn’t require hand-holding either. Make a map (which may or may not have hexes) and put some interesting stuff in it. Not exactly hard to work out. The most significant part of a sandbox is what it doesn't include: a plotline for the players to follow. The rest is just worldbuilding, which I believe features prominently in the new DMG.

This is thread is really about OneTrueWayism. The OP thinks sandbox should be presented as the CORRECT way to play D&D. Which is why they aren't complaining about the absence of several dozen other ways of playing D&D that aren't described in detail in the DMG.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am of the opinion that 5e is actually extremely poor at facilitating "storytelling."

Feature, not a bug, and has nothing to do with 5e. It's been part of D&D since the start, as it was never designed as a storytelling game. You can tell stories with it, but it requires some skill to do so without impacting player agency. But it's a bit cludgy because it's not what it was designed for.

As you say, there are lots of storytelling games around, and many of them don't care about the OGL because they were never ripped off from D&D in in the first place.