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?

 

[Morrus]

I do not agree with this thesis. There are many more than two. A campaign does not have to be location based at all.

The 'thesis' with which you disagree is not one I presented.

 

[TerraDave]

People will say sandbox.

And play party.

 

[Lanefan]

Sandbox if the PCs venture out on their own; they find what they find and if it's too easy or too tough for 'em, so be it. Even more so if they don't bother with much info gathering ahead of time.

The specific adventure hooks I drop will usually be more level-appropriate; though they'll occasionally hear of something only to be told outright it's very likely above (or below) their pay grade.

 

[TwoSix]

The idea that you have to put a ton of work into sandbox campaigns kind of baffle me. You have to put some thought into directions that your players could take but most of the time it can be a sentence or two.

The way I handle it is that at the end of a session I ask where the group wants to head next time and I prep for that. If they ever manage to stumble into an area I haven't even considered I'll make something up that's consistent with the rest of the campaign world.

I guess I've always been into improv, so much so that people accuse me of magically railroading when I'm making things up on the fly. It's a skill and like all skills is something most people can develop and get better at by doing it.

I think I'm quibbling with the OP a bit, but I think that if you're improving heavily, then it's definitionally not a sandbox. I've had the party take hard rights into stuff I know is too tough for them, just based on the little bit of context I've thrown out, and had their butts kicked as a result. But the fact that I'm making it up on the fly makes it hard to think of as a sandbox.

Like, my 13th level party has [/i]plane shift[/i]. They could literally go almost anywhere with a little bit of work. If they decide to plane shift into Nessus or something, they'll get destroyed. That doesn't make my campaign anything close to a sandbox.

 

[jgsugden]

Double post

 

[jgsugden]

It is a Mix in campaigns, but an adventure (8 to 12 sessions from beginning to end) or one shot is narrowly crafted for the party.

My campaigns tend to feature a format, although it is not an absolute law.

Levels 1 to 4 are usually a railroad. They change the world that the PCs know and love and leave them in a world requiring exploration. This might be caused by a voyage, a calamity or something else.

Levels 5 to 17 are usually the Mix. I place powerful features out in their environment, but the challenges they happen upon outside of those key powerhouse features tend to be more level appropriate. At higher levels, I often just toss in something along the lines of, "During the night a few skeletons stumbled upon your camp and attacked. The cleric was on watch and quietly destroyed them with her channel divinity and mace." At lower levels they may catch sight of something fearsome from a distance and be discouraged from approaching.

Levels 18 to 20 are again a railroad to the final battle of the campaign.

 

[Oofta]

I think I'm quibbling with the OP a bit, but I think that if you're improving heavily, then it's definitionally not a sandbox. I've had the party take hard rights into stuff I know is too tough for them, just based on the little bit of context I've thrown out, and had their butts kicked as a result. But the fact that I'm making it up on the fly makes it hard to think of as a sandbox.

Like, my 13th level party has [/i]plane shift[/i]. They could literally go almost anywhere with a little bit of work. If they decide to plane shift into Nessus or something, they'll get destroyed. That doesn't make my campaign anything close to a sandbox.

I guess it depends on what you define as sandbox. From wikipedia:

A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that gives the player a great degree of creativity to complete tasks towards a goal within the game, if such a goal exists. Some games exist as pure sandbox games with no objectives.​

So I think improv pretty much has to be part of a sandbox because PCs can go wherever they want and attempt whatever they want. If I happen to mention that the BBEG's castle is on Fort EvilDoom and they want to go there, I'm not going to stop them from attempting even if I think they have zero chance of getting there. So hopefully I can make some encounters with monsters I have prepped (probably doubling the numbers) or I'll do a quick look up for some appropriate opponents.

Because even though I knew about Fort EvilDoom, I never in a hundred years expected them to attempt to storm the castle and I only have it vaguely sketched out. After all, it's a sandbox campaign and they never have to go to Fort EvilDoom if they don't want to. It would be impossible to prep the entire world ahead of time.

On the other hand I do limit things like Plane Shift and Teleport for my own sanity. I also ask that they don't go completely 100% off tangent from where they said they were going at the end of the last session.

Running a sandbox does require a certain level of prep. I know in general who's who and what's where. It gets fuzzier the further out it gets from expected path though. Fortunately it's not a computer game, I don't need to prep the entire world ahead of time, I just need to lean on improv now and then.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I voted Party, but I actually prefer a mixed approach.

The world itself is a sandbox. Different areas have different wandering monster tables, and going into an area that is too dangerous can be deadly (although I always heavily telegraph the danger of an area, so much so that my players are somewhat hesitant to go there even after they are sufficiently leveled).

However, I do a handout every week that lists job opportunities, potential adventure sites, and rumors. The adventures on that sheet are designed to be at or close to their level, irrespective of where in the world they occur. For example, I recently had a low-level kobold den that the PCs had ventured to many levels ago which was taken over by mind flayers (an adventure appropriate to their level).

Hence why I chose Party. While in theory they could wander around and play it sandbox style, in application they always choose adventures (which are around their level). They might encounter some trivial random encounters while traveling to the adventure site, but the site itself is always around their level, even though they have the option to find a site that isn't level appropriate (if they wanted to).

 

[NaturalZero]

People will say sandbox.

And play party.

Truth. I've never played in or ran a game where the DM threw out encounters of completely arbitrary challenge level compared to the party the entire campaign, which is what you would get if you were really running a "sandbox," as per the OP. The reality is that people that think they run "sandbox" might allow the group the encounter super high level monsters in certain circumstances but a lot of the time they try to make encounters that are somewhat reasonable for the party.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, since there isn't the option in the poll, I've got no answer for it. Ultimately, it's mixed. There's a place for the tailored encounters (based on party level) and a place for the status quo encounters (not based on party level).