D&D 5E Do You Prefer Sandbox or Party Level Areas In Your Game World?

So these are two approaches that campaigns can (and do) use. They have various names, but I'm using these names. I've used both approaches in the past.

Obviously there is more nuance than the definitions below, but these are two possible extreme ends of the poll when voting feel free to choose whichever end you tend towards, or embellish in the comments.

Sandbox -- each area on the world map has a set difficulty, and if you're a low level party and wander into a dangerous area, you're in trouble. The Shire is low level, Moria is high level. Those are 'absolute' values and aren't dependent on who's traveling through.

Party -- adventurers encounter challenges appropriate to their level wherever they are on the map. A low level party in Moria just meets a few goblins. A high level party meets a balrog!

Which do you prefer?

 

[Ovinomancer]

This cuts to the heart of it for me. I've never encountered a DM who had both a high opinion of his ability to "fool" players by making everything up on the fly and the actual capability to pull off the deception. Hence, I'm naturally skeptical of the possibility.

Well, you still haven't, because I certainly don't think I even need to "fool" the players.

I run sandboxes because when I'm on the player's side of the screen, I viscerally despise the agency-robbing feeling of having the game-world made up around me as I play.

See, I get this. And, I agree that I strongly dislike play that decreases my agency as a player or the protagonism of my PC. There are approaches, though, even in D&D, where you can do high levels of improv and still protect these things. This usually requires the GM to adopt clear, open, player-facing principles of play that do this job. One such would be to only negate an action declaration if it violates genre expectations or established fiction. This means that the GM doesn't just say an action fails if it doesn't run afoul of openly established fiction (ie, notes don't count). The GM can only challenge such things by calling for a check, and setting DCs openly and according to the fiction -- ie, not just setting arbitrarily high DCs. Doing this openly makes the process transparent and reveals distortion by the GM. Pair this with a second principle to always honor success and you get a strong core of agency while not having to do a lot of prep -- if a called for check succeeds, the player achieves or moves toward their goals. On a failure, the GM introduces a consequence. This lets play develop organically while maintaining player agency -- their decisions really matter.

Of course, a lot of people might dislike this kind of play, but it goes to the point that disliking this is for a different reason than improv results in low agency play.

 

[Xetheral]

This cuts to the heart of it for me. I've never encountered a DM who had both a high opinion of his ability to "fool" players by making everything up on the fly and the actual capability to pull off the deception. Hence, I'm naturally skeptical of the possibility.

I run sandboxes because when I'm on the player's side of the screen, I viscerally despise the agency-robbing feeling of having the game-world made up around me as I play.

Since even the most well-prepared DM will have to improvise on occasion when the PCs take the campaign in an unexpected direction, I'm presuming not all improvisation makes you feel like the game world is made up around you as you play?

For example, if the PCs decide to travel to a particular village, does it ruin the experience for you if the DM says: "Ok, cool. We're going to take a 10-minute break while I flesh out my notes on that region." There's no fooling the players in this case, other than that they'll never know which elements of the village were included in the original notes, and which were fleshed out later.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I am no expert communicator by any means, let alone teacher of such things. The earlier food examples are telling though, I mentioned people reacting to foods they are completely unfamiliar with, and while the video aren't without issue, they don't come across as elitist by any stretch despite the massive disparity of experience with a thing.

Yeah, as I noted, there's a wide acceptance that different cuisines exist, and even a strong movement to sampling them. This is somewhat lacking in the RPG community, which, due to many factors, tend to support picking a game and sticking to it. Which, if you ask me, is a large part of the equation as to why it's so difficult to talk about these things without emotional responses.

It's my understanding that it's usually best to avoid assuming other people's level of knowledge/experience on a subject, and let them share it as they want. And it's best to avoid ascribing things to lack of experience/knowledge when there are other possibilities.

And yet, when I take such pains, I still get the pushback, because then it switches to hostility at the question about experience. "Do you have experience with other game approaches and systems that don't look like D&D" is not received any better, no matter how politely or carefully it's wrapped. Most people avoid answering this question, because they feel like it's asking them to admit ignorance, or it's a trap that will be slammed shut once they admit that ignorance. If they do have experience -- like yourself (and I didn't assume you had no experience, you're welcome to go back and reread) -- it's can be wielded like a club, as you did, to level accusations of elitism.

I mean, you still haven't said one word on what it is you don't like or what it is you do, you've just engaged the "you're acting elitism" angles, and I've asked. More than once.

Yeah, don't think much good can come of me detailing my issues with those systems in this thread/subforum, and I'm not really up to it anyways. If you were assuming I gave the systems a fair shot, great, I was just saying it didn't really come across that way.

Yes, it's hard to engage a topic if one side won't talk about it, but insists they have the high ground to call out elitism....

 

[Mort]

I run sandboxes because when I'm on the player's side of the screen, I viscerally despise the agency-robbing feeling of having the game-world made up around me as I play.

I'm confused by the latest turn in this thread where somehow Sandbox and improv are on opposite sides and party focused (from the poll and the OP) isn't even mentioned.

I just don't see how improvisation is somehow contrary to a sandbox campaign, especially as defined in the OP.

I mean maybe the DM improvises, maybe he doesn't but that can be true in either a sandbox or a party focused campaign without having any bearing on either of those. Am I missing something?

 

[Xetheral]

Yeah, as I noted, there's a wide acceptance that different cuisines exist, and even a strong movement to sampling them. This is somewhat lacking in the RPG community, which, due to many factors, tend to support picking a game and sticking to it. Which, if you ask me, is a large part of the equation as to why it's so difficult to talk about these things without emotional responses.

Interesting analogy! I think the lack of a similar trend in the RPG community may be due to differences in how RPGs are perceived at a conceptual level, some of which would suggest alternative analogies.

For example, for those who treat RPGs as tools for running games at their own tables, the closer analogy might be cookware, rather than cooking. Many chefs have strong preferences about the type of cookware they use, and apart from some casual experimentation aren't likely to venture away from their preference unless they need a different tool to cook an entirely different type of dish. But that analogy would itself fall apart for anyone who views RPGs as a finished dish rather than a tool for making your own dish.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm confused by the latest turn in this thread where somehow Sandbox and improv are on opposite sides and party focused (from the poll and the OP) isn't even mentioned.

I just don't see how improvisation is somehow contrary to a sandbox campaign, especially as defined in the OP.

I mean maybe the DM improvises, maybe he doesn't but that can be true in either a sandbox or a party focused campaign without having any bearing on either of those. Am I missing something?

you aren't missing anything. You can see how this started by jumping back to read around 100 & 108. The two sides as far as I can tell is that A: the best sandbox is done with prep and that after properly prepping a gm will never under any circumstances encounter a situation where they need to limit player agency to keep it within the scope of their notes or adlib anything in response to player actions other than perhaps the players asking a bartender an off the wall question while a gm who adlibs will never prepare anything whatsoever resulting in a chaotic & jumbled mess of a campaign 100% of the time on one side. On the other side is B: a very reasonable stance that there are limitations to prep and that some amount of adlibbing is good because that there are a wide range of benefits to boning up on those skills & grasping methods that assist in doing so.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Since even the most well-prepared DM will have to improvise on occasion when the PCs take the campaign in an unexpected direction, I'm presuming not all improvisation makes you feel like the game world is made up around you as you play?

For example, if the PCs decide to travel to a particular village, does it ruin the experience for you if the DM says: "Ok, cool. We're going to take a 10-minute break while I flesh out my notes on that region." There's no fooling the players in this case, other than that they'll never know which elements of the village were included in the original notes, and which were fleshed out later.

No, not all improvisation. To give a simple example from the DM's side if the screen, if my notes say that map hex 0204 has an orc tribe encamped there with ~100 individuals, ~30 of whom are able-bodied warriors, and the leaders have X amount of treasure (including Y and Z magical items), it doesn't feel like utter naughty word to make up minor details on the fly (NPC names, extrapolating motivations or personalities from the reaction rolls, and so forth). It's important to have the fundamentals already in place, though, or else the game-world might as well be arbitrary. So it's a matter of what particular things get improvised—namely, what's in the world and how dangerous it is in concrete terms.

Now if the PCs want to venture off the edge of the prepared map, I will expect both a warning of the players' intent to do this and sufficient prep time to add more map. I wouldn't do it in a 10-minute break, though: I'd hold things until next game session at the very least. The point is, it's the deceptive practices that I absolutely can't abide. Openness abrogates the despicable "Houdini factor."

Even if, however, (speaking as a player now) the DM were honest about making up the next chunk of map ahead of our characters going there, I would certainly feel robbed if it were in some way "custom tailored" to my character and my party. Ice monsters for the pyromancer to melt (or fire monsters for the pyromancer to fail at dealing with), that exact magic sword that the fighter really wants—it's admittedly a matter of degree rather than kind, but too much of that business is just too transparently artificial. Again, it's a verisimilitude-killer.

I'm confused by the latest turn in this thread where somehow Sandbox and improv are on opposite sides and party focused (from the poll and the OP) isn't even mentioned.

I just don't see how improvisation is somehow contrary to a sandbox campaign, especially as defined in the OP.

I mean maybe the DM improvises, maybe he doesn't but that can be true in either a sandbox or a party focused campaign without having any bearing on either of those. Am I missing something?

Yes, improv is technically orthogonal to the OP's issue of fixed vs. scaled challenges. The thing is, improv allows for scaled challenges and honestly prepared sandboxes really don't. So it's still correlative.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, not all improvisation. To give a simple example from the DM's side if the screen, if my notes say that map hex 0204 has an orc tribe encamped there with ~100 individuals, ~30 of whom are able-bodied warriors, and the leaders have X amount of treasure (including Y and Z magical items), it doesn't feel like utter naughty word to make up minor details on the fly (NPC names, extrapolating motivations or personalities from the reaction rolls, and so forth). It's important to have the fundamentals already in place, though, or else the game-world might as well be arbitrary. So it's a matter of what particular things get improvised—namely, what's in the world and how dangerous it is in concrete terms.

Everything in an RPG is arbitrary -- it's all make believe. You're reifying the make believe (treating it as real) based on when it's imagined. This is one of the main reasons I say that this argument -- that it's more realistic/verisimilar/believable -- is misplaced. I think you were on much more solid ground when you, quite starkly, pointed to the issues regarding agency.

Now if the PCs want to venture off the edge of the prepared map, I will expect both a warning of the players' intent to do this and sufficient prep time to add more map. I wouldn't do it in a 10-minute break, though: I'd hold things until next game session at the very least. The point is, it's the deceptive practices that I absolutely can't abide. Openness abrogates the despicable "Houdini factor."

Even if, however, (speaking as a player now) the DM were honest about making up the next chunk of map ahead of our characters going there, I would certainly feel robbed if it were in some way "custom tailored" to my character and my party. Ice monsters for the pyromancer to melt (or fire monsters for the pyromancer to fail at dealing with), that exact magic sword that the fighter really wants—it's admittedly a matter of degree rather than kind, but too much of that business is just too transparently artificial. Again, it's a verisimilitude-killer.

Can you tell the difference, in play, between randomly determined ice monsters, ice monsters prepared prior to play, or ice monsters imagined during play?

This, again, points more towards the ideas of agency you've espoused than the verisimilitude of the game.

Yes, improv is technically orthogonal to the OP's issue of fixed vs. scaled challenges. The think is, improv allows for scaled challenges and honestly prepared sandboxes really don't. So it's still correlative.

The qualifier of "honestly prepared" doesn't exist in the OP. Again, I point to my prior statement that if you got all the people voting sandbox in a room together, you'd be hard pressed to get a consensus definition of sandbox.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Interesting analogy! I think the lack of a similar trend in the RPG community may be due to differences in how RPGs are perceived at a conceptual level, some of which would suggest alternative analogies.

For example, for those who treat RPGs as tools for running games at their own tables, the closer analogy might be cookware, rather than cooking. Many chefs have strong preferences about the type of cookware they use, and apart from some casual experimentation aren't likely to venture away from their preference unless they need a different tool to cook an entirely different type of dish. But that analogy would itself fall apart for anyone who views RPGs as a finished dish rather than a tool for making your own dish.

All analogies* are bad. Some are useful.

*After all, what is an analogy if not a kind of model used to explain a concept with a familiar topic?

 

[cbwjm]

After reading through the descriptions, I'd say sandbox. Although I'm developing adventures as the game progresses (and therefore, the combats tend to be level appropriate so similar to party), there are certain areas where if the players entered it, they'd be up against some low-level minions and be able to easily clean up... or maybe get overwhelmed by the numbers of opponents, there's no 6th level fighter killing 6 kobolds a round in 5e.

I actually want to put together a small sandbox in thunder rift. They have a few adventures there which all have levels attached and I think it would be a great starting area for 1st to 6th level play.