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]

And this is the point. Improv vs prep is a false dichotomy. Good improv requires good prep, as the preparation in figuring out a consistent and coherent setting is what makes you able to improvise something that feels like it belonged there all along.

Improv requires a premise, but not a much more. You can develop the setting in the game, even, with no prep. There are a number of good zero myth approaches that generate the setting as you play, so, no, can't quite agree with this. This statement really comes from a position of thinking where the GM is solely responsible for the setting material, and the expectation that at least a background of that is prepared ahead of play. This isn't the only approach, although it is, by far, the most used. Not sure if that's because it works better or if it's just because it's the understanding tied to D&D.

 

[Maxperson]

This statement really comes from a position of thinking where the GM is solely responsible for the setting material, and the expectation that at least a background of that is prepared ahead of play. This isn't the only approach, although it is, by far, the most used. Not sure if that's because it works better or if it's just because it's the understanding tied to D&D.

I don't know if it works better, but it's certainly easier for me. Full improv is a lot of work for me. If I have a framework pre-planned, though, it provides a pretty strong base for me to build off of, and I find it both easier to improv the rest of the game and the improv is smoother.

 

[Xetheral]

I don't see value in a definition of play that requires ignoring this. It harms understanding of how play happens.

I think the most effective way of understanding how play happens is to listen to how other posters describe play at their table. If other posters are defining the scope of play differently than we do, then it evidently has value to them to do so, and I'm interested in understanding why. Saying that you see no value in an expanded scope of play seems to me to itself harm understanding of how play happens. (Both by discounting evidence of how play happens if it conflicts with what you consider in- or out-of-scope, and by discouraging others from sharing their persectives.)

That being said, since @Lanefan has pointed out that my understanding of their perspective vis-a-vis an expanded scope of play isn't quite right, I evidently need to reconsider my analysis of the source of the disagreement in this case.

Nitpick: I'm not defining the scope of play, I'm defining the scope of the setting, which is bigger and covers things that have not yet - and may never - arise in play.

Thanks for pointing out where my understanding is coming up short! I do, of course, have a clarifying question about your clarification.

I was under the impression that you were defining the setting itself (and the DM's materials relating to the setting) as an established part of the game, and thus within "the scope of play". In other words, that the setting materials (shared or not) were just as much a part of the game at the table as the character's actions and choices.

Are you merely objecting to my choice of the phrase "scope of play" to refer to material that is considered an established part of the game? Or am I more fundamentally misunderstanding your perspective?

If you're not treating the unshared parts of the setting as an established part of the game (i.e. defining the scope of what has been established broadly enough to include created-but-unpresented material) then I'm definitely still in the dark concerning why you think it matters if the DM changes setting details prior to presenting them in play.

 

[Lanefan]

This was further addressed in a later post - that yes, of course things are in Flux and it is odd to say otherwise. Anything the PCs haven't encountered is potential vs. real.

Say the DM preps an encounter with Admiral Higley if the PCs ever sail into a particular port in Singapore.

But let's say the DM, really wanting the players to encounter Higley, also plans an encounter with him in Malaysia or Indonesia - and in multiple ports thereof.

1. Higley is just potential until he happens;

2. If the PCs encounter him in Malaysia, it would be odd if this does not affect how they later encounter him in Singapore. Or if they encounter him at all. Let's say they shoot him in Malaysia. It would be odd, and quite surreal, if they then have an identical encounter with him when they make it to Singapore.

If Higley's important (potentially) to the plot then I'm going to have at least a vague idea of where he'll be, when. For example, he might be in Singapore for the month of May, then spend a week sailing to Manila where he'll be for the rest of June. Which means, if the PCs look for him in Manila in May they simply ain't gonna find him: he's not there. And if they get to Singapore in early June the best they can do is learn they just missed him and - maybe - where he's going next.

Putting him in the path of the PCs no matter where the PCs are is exactly what I don't want to do. He is where he is and the PCs either find him or they don't.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think the most effective way of understanding how play happens is to listen to how other posters describe play at their table. If other posters are defining the scope of play differently than we do, then it evidently has value to them to do so, and I'm interested in understanding why. Saying that you see no value in an expanded scope of play seems to me to itself harm understanding of how play happens. (Both by discounting evidence of how play happens if it conflicts with what you consider in- or out-of-scope, and by discouraging others from sharing their persectives.)

That being said, since @Lanefan has pointed out that my understanding of their perspective vis-a-vis an expanded scope of play isn't quite right, I evidently need to reconsider my analysis of the source of the disagreement in this case.

When the statement made runs directly into observable inconsistence, the benefit of the doubt is waved. If someone is saying that the GM's notes hold as much permanence and "real"ity as the shared fiction, this is demonstrably false -- the GM's notes are far more malleable than the shared fiction, and can be changed at any time. Thus, I need not lend much credit to an argument that the GM's notes are equally "real" as the shared fiction. Nor must I lend credit to the argument that having notes makes for more real games, as this is also demonstably untrue by dint of other approaches that do "real" well. Instead, there's a specific thing that's being sought that's hiding behind "real" in these discussions, and is likely different for each person (although probably in some distinct camps in aggregate). Asking people to actually stop, put away the surface arguments that don't help, and look at what it is they're getting from play is not dismissing that there a valid way to play there -- it's saying that the given reason of "real"ness isn't really it.

The GM needing notes to do a good job at presenting a real world is perfectly understandable. This differs from just saying prep equals "real" in that it allows the player to recognize areas they may be weak and they can then decide if this is something they want to work on. Hiding this behind "prep makes for real" means there's never a reason to consider this.

The GM wanting to provide a keyed experience so that they can act the arbiter in play rather than a director (as with AP play) is also perfectly valid, and this difference from claiming "real" lets the GM better understand what's important to prep to get this experience because they're not evaluating prep by "real" but instead by how well it creates the environment that the players then try to "solve."

Or, some other question. If you stop at "real" you'll never examine your play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

If Higley's important (potentially) to the plot then I'm going to have at least a vague idea of where he'll be, when. For example, he might be in Singapore for the month of May, then spend a week sailing to Manila where he'll be for the rest of June. Which means, if the PCs look for him in Manila in May they simply ain't gonna find him: he's not there. And if they get to Singapore in early June the best they can do is learn they just missed him and - maybe - where he's going next.

Putting him in the path of the PCs no matter where the PCs are is exactly what I don't want to do. He is where he is and the PCs either find him or they don't.

Sure, but you can do this with improv techinques as well. If the PCs look for Higley in Singapore, they can make a check. If they succeed, Higley's in Singapore. If they fail, I, as GM, have options. Perhaps Higley's still in Singapore, but there's a problem. Or maybe he's not, and they find out he's in Manila. Point is, I don't have to have the slightest idea where Higley is to create this same effect. Sure, the method to do so is different, but the result in the fiction isn't.

 

[Lanefan]

Thanks for pointing out where my understanding is coming up short! I do, of course, have a clarifying question about your clarification.

I was under the impression that you were defining the setting itself (and the DM's materials relating to the setting) as an established part of the game, and thus within "the scope of play". In other words, that the setting materials (shared or not) were just as much a part of the game at the table as the character's actions and choices.

Yes. So, to put it another way, "the game" in my view extends beyond just what happens at the table during the session. It includes GM prep and imagination, setting construction and design, rules modifying, record-keeping, and all the other bits that go into making what happens at the table happen.

And all of that is, at any given moment, established. And here my perspective may differ from some, in that if (for example) I-as-GM have determined during setting construction - before play even starts - that there's going to be a large city on the south coast named Spieadeia, then in my view that's an established thing. Yes I can still change my mind and pull that city off the map, but until-unless I do that city counts as established in that whatever I think up next for that area is going to be flavoured by the presence of a big city there.

Are you merely objecting to my choice of the phrase "scope of play" to refer to material that is considered an established part of the game? Or am I more fundamentally misunderstanding your perspective?

My quibble is more with the idea that the game only consists of the sessions at the table; and that the term "scope of play" reflects this thinking.

If you're not treating the unshared parts of the setting as an established part of the game (i.e. defining the scope of what has been established broadly enough to include created-but-unpresented material) then I'm definitely still in the dark concerning why you think it matters if the DM changes setting details prior to presenting them in play.

I'm treating unshared parts of the setting as established parts of the setting, even if they're established only in my own mind and-or in my own notes/maps. The unestablished bits of the setting are where the map yet remains blank.

That said, there's the question of level-of-detail. My setting maps might show a particular area as merely "hills"; which means it's locked in that there's hills there but also means I'm still free to add villages or trails or adventure sites or other more-detailed elements to those hills as time and the campaign go on. What I can't add is anything that, had it been present all along, might have changed anything that actually happened during play. I cant, for example, add a towering mountain into those hills that the PCs could have seen in the distance when they passed through six months ago; as for all I know the presence of said mountain might have prompted the PCs to check it out.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but you can do this with improv techinques as well. If the PCs look for Higley in Singapore, they can make a check. If they succeed, Higley's in Singapore. If they fail, I, as GM, have options. Perhaps Higley's still in Singapore, but there's a problem. Or maybe he's not, and they find out he's in Manila. Point is, I don't have to have the slightest idea where Higley is to create this same effect. Sure, the method to do so is different, but the result in the fiction isn't.

Except the moment will inevitably come when I-as-player realize that it's only the result of my check that determines where Higley is in the setting. Andit's at that moment the whole thing falls apart for me.

 

[Krachek]

In the DM guide there is a section about using the dice.
For the sandboxer this section is catastrophic.
The DM has the authorization to not roll the dice and decide the outcome.
You may want to play strict sandbox, but you use a framework that allow to completely dismantle it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Except the moment will inevitably come when I-as-player realize that it's only the result of my check that determines where Higley is in the setting. Andit's at that moment the whole thing falls apart for me.

Well that's not because one is more real than the other, so what's the reason?