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

I think one of the issues is the traditional sandbox motivators - wealth, power, prestige, kingdom building - simply don’t appeal to a lot of players. My players want to be heroes, not mercenaries.
Exploration and entrepreneurship are solid sandbox motivations too. And who says you can't become heroes along the way?
 

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Part of this debate has been about some of the things the DMG no longer provides. Your comment on randomly generated dungeons is a good example of something we simply don't need any more. If I want to randomly generate a dungeon they are just a quick search away. So the generators exist, easier to use and quicker than what we had back in the old DMG. Same thing goes for random encounter generators. A quick search for "d&d random encounter generator" gave me a page of results. The first result that came up: D&D 5th Edition Random Encounter Generator - Goblinist let's you enter party makeup, how difficult you want the encounter to be, what environment. A chart in the DMG can't really compete with this, why should they try?

With WotC D&D, they've abandoned the idea that they need to control every aspect of the game with the OGL. In many ways they don't even try. For some people this is a bad thing, I think it's just acceptance of reality and opens up the door to creative solutions.
To go further, how many people in the Year of Our Lord 2025 are using graph paper and geomorphs to sketch a dungeon? Most people probably search for one of the thousands of maps online and stock it. How many people go to online generators for settlements, weather or NPC names? The only area I think they could have covered better was generating random encounter tables.

The problem with procedure generation using a printed book is that it's space intensive and serviced better by online tools. I recall the complaints WotC got in Xanathar for adding name lists, with the biggest complaint being it was a waste of space for something you could find free online. I think WotC might have taken that response to heart when making the DMG.
 

Part of this debate has been about some of the things the DMG no longer provides. Your comment on randomly generated dungeons is a good example of something we simply don't need any more. If I want to randomly generate a dungeon they are just a quick search away. So the generators exist, easier to use and quicker than what we had back in the old DMG. Same thing goes for random encounter generators. A quick search for "d&d random encounter generator" gave me a page of results. The first result that came up: D&D 5th Edition Random Encounter Generator - Goblinist let's you enter party makeup, how difficult you want the encounter to be, what environment. A chart in the DMG can't really compete with this, why should they try?

With WotC D&D, they've abandoned the idea that they need to control every aspect of the game with the OGL. In many ways they don't even try. For some people this is a bad thing, I think it's just acceptance of reality and opens up the door to creative solutions.
Quick question: if things shouldn't be in the book because they're easily found with an internet search, what should be there? What does the book need to have in it because you can't just find it on the internet? I can't think of anything.
 


To go further, how many people in the Year of Our Lord 2025 are using graph paper and geomorphs to sketch a dungeon? Most people probably search for one of the thousands of maps online and stock it. How many people go to online generators for settlements, weather or NPC names? The only area I think they could have covered better was generating random encounter tables.

The problem with procedure generation using a printed book is that it's space intensive and serviced better by online tools. I recall the complaints WotC got in Xanathar for adding name lists, with the biggest complaint being it was a waste of space for something you could find free online. I think WotC might have taken that response to heart when making the DMG.
I am not sure I buy this, given how well received games like Shadowdark are -- which is probably 60% random tables.
 

To go further, how many people in the Year of Our Lord 2025 are using graph paper and geomorphs to sketch a dungeon? Most people probably search for one of the thousands of maps online and stock it. How many people go to online generators for settlements, weather or NPC names? The only area I think they could have covered better was generating random encounter tables.

The problem with procedure generation using a printed book is that it's space intensive and serviced better by online tools. I recall the complaints WotC got in Xanathar for adding name lists, with the biggest complaint being it was a waste of space for something you could find free online. I think WotC might have taken that response to heart when making the DMG.
raises hand

I do all those things. The first draft of my homebrew setting map was made on graph paper during a slow period at work. I used tables to procedurally generate a wrecked post-apocalyptic neighborhood for my players to explore in a mid-sized modern city a couple months ago, and a different set of tables to determine the NPCs trapped in a flooded building with them.
 


Quick question: if things shouldn't be in the book because they're easily found with an internet search, what should be there? What does the book need to have in it because you can't just find it on the internet? I can't think of anything.
There's still good material in the DMG even if it is aimed at new DMs. It's just not the best use of resources to put random tables in there. I keep hoping the encounter builder in DDB will get out of beta at some point and put together some tools others have slapped together. Then make it part of the free to use set of tools. Ah well, if wishes were horses and all WotC obviously has priorities other than actually finishing that particular tool.
 

raises hand

I do all those things. The first draft of my homebrew setting map was made on graph paper during a slow period at work. I used tables to procedurally generate a wrecked post-apocalyptic neighborhood for my players to explore in a mid-sized modern city a couple months ago, and a different set of tables to determine the NPCs trapped in a flooded building with them.

You aren't exactly the target market though, then again neither am I. Their target market have probably never seen graph paper.
 


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