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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SpiritOfFire" data-source="post: 6356117" data-attributes="member: 6778247">Hi everyone.New to the board and a newish DM. I started to reply to the HotDQ Sandbox thread, but it got too big so here I go:SANDBOX ADVENTURES:I REALLY want to run a sandbox adventure for once. I've seen a video of the guys at RollPlay and the way they play blows my mind. TBH, the only meaty experience I have with any table RPGs is D&D 4e. And the adventures I ran for it were mostly a series of dungeons...what a chore. So when I decided to make my own adventure, it was super derivative (which the players noticed to my embarrassment) and I still felt like I was forcing the players down a story line. I'm beginning to understand the importance of focusing of the setting and events occurring over an area rather than a movie-like plot. But the problem is, I am not creative enough to come up with a whole campaign by myself without ripping off popular movies/shows. T_TSo I need help. I figured Hoard of the Dragon Queen could help me achieve that, but if it's just a series of small interactions and linked dungeons, I'm going to cancel my preorder. If anyone has HotDQ already, please let me know what it's like! What do I even need to run a sandbox? Are published adventures even what I'm looking for? Maybe campaign setting books (none planned for 5e)? I am running the 5e starter adventure, and it seemed open when the players got to the main town hub, trying to figure out what's going on, but once they collected all the intel, it just became one dungeon after another in search of the mcguffin. There's also no info on the surrounding areas. The players wanted to go to Neverwinter to get better supplies and etc, but I know nothing of this city! No info whatsoever, even tho the players supposedly just came from there <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f621.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":mad:" title="Mad    :mad:"  data-smilie="4"data-shortname=":mad:" />.HATE DUNGEONSI am learning to hate the idea of dungeons. It always devolves into: search for traps, clear room, search/loot, repeat. I can FEEL the exasperation of the players as they try to rush to get through. It almost feels like playing an old JRPG where you're trying to get to the next town, but forced to stop by random encounters in between. After 4e, I decided to try to "theater of the mind" a dungeon in the 5e starter set, but the players lost their sense of direction and tactical awareness. The wizard complained how he didn't know how to space out his movements and AOE spells. Everyone got lost since they didn't know which room connected to which hallway without their grid. I still think I prefer theater of the mind, but I don't think these dungeons could stay as-is. Perhaps I could strip down these dungeons to a few areas with the memorable enemies and traps? How do you deal with stuff like zoning, flanking, etc and AOE spells using the "theater" method? Does anyone use a diceroll to determine how many enemies get hit within blast range or if allies get caught up in it too? How do you keep the players from getting lost in these complicated dungeons without a battlemap drawn in? I am DREADING the last dungeon in the starter set. LOOK AT THE MAP! OMG!HALP</blockquote>

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