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?

 

[Lanefan]

You've seen me post for a long time now, so you know I'm pretty DM forward, and even I'm appalled by that particular bit of advice.

I'm not, though it depends how one reads the words and underlying intent.

If one reads it as "be the boss no matter what and squash the players under your bootheels" then yeah, it falls flat.

But if one reads it as "it's your table and as such it's incumbent on you to be at your best because the players are going to push you" then it's as solid as a rock.

 

[Lanefan]

We should realize too that in those days DM's had campaigns and players came and went.

This; and this is still how I see the game. Players come and go, and for each player PCs come and go, yet the campaign - and thus the game - rolls on.

I may spend 200 hours prepping a campaign setting (as I run more than one campaign in a setting often). I start building them long before the players know I'm even going to run a game. I am lucky if some of the players have prepared anything at all before they show up. They've got zero hours invested.

Well, each player has maybe a half-hour worth of session -1 stuff where I tell said player the basics of what I'm thinking of running and extend an invitation to play in it.

But yes, I also do most (as in nearly all) of my setting design before I even know who the players will be.

 

[tetrasodium]

And how did this new D&D perspective come to be? I ask so as to best find ways to undo it...

I posted a couple pages from the 2e ad&d dmg that embody the same kind of spirit, it's hardly "new".

 

[Lanefan]

It's been part of the community since the beginning, far as I can tell, it's just grown in popularity over time. Because people want to tell stories together more than they want to play adverserial old school Gygaxian DnD.

Thing is, speaking from long experience, these two things are not opposites by any means. One can have a great story grow out of hard-line adversarial play. Been there, done that, and have the game logs to prove it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Thing is, speaking from long experience, these two things are not opposites by any means. One can have a great story grow out of hard-line adversarial play. Been there, done that, and have the game logs to prove it.

Doesn't matter at all. A game that focuses on cooperative storytelling isn't going to be adversarial, and tends t osuffer from a DM who thinks they're god.

 

[Emerikol]

This; and this is still how I see the game. Players come and go, and for each player PCs come and go, yet the campaign - and thus the game - rolls on.

I think my old friend that we are a dying breed.

Well, each player has maybe a half-hour worth of session -1 stuff where I tell said player the basics of what I'm thinking of running and extend an invitation to play in it.

Yeah I call it session 0 but I suppose the emails that go out even before that could be called session -1.

But yes, I also do most (as in nearly all) of my setting design before I even know who the players will be.

For me, when I ask the players if they are interested, they want to play right away. So I don't mention I'm getting a game together until I have it ready.

 

[Lanefan]

I think my old friend that we are a dying breed.

Speak for yourself. I have no intention of dying anytime soon.

Yeah I call it session 0 but I suppose the emails that go out even before that could be called session -1.

To me, session -1 is the pitch-and-invite phase which happens (usually) one-on-one with prospective players before we all sit down together. Session 0 is roll-up, setting introduction, and rules-change-announcement night. Session 1 is, of course, the start of actual play.

Sessions 0 and 1 can merge at the same actual get-together if the roll-up etc. part goes smoothly enough, as happened with my current campaign.

For me, when I ask the players if they are interested, they want to play right away. So I don't mention I'm getting a game together until I have it ready.

I sort of have to mention well ahead of time if I've got something on the boil, if only to keep or reserve the night(s) of the week I want to run on. That said, these days - as in the last ten-plus years - we've settled down into a fairly stable pattern where Sunday is mine, Saturday is the other main DM's, and the rest of the week is up for grabs.

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't matter at all. A game that focuses on cooperative storytelling isn't going to be adversarial, and tends t osuffer from a DM who thinks they're god.

Good thing I'm not running a storytelling game, then. The game's story comes out as a side effect of what happens in play and sometimes isn't even visible until looked at in hindsight.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Good thing I'm not running a storytelling game, then. The game's story comes out as a side effect of what happens in play and sometimes isn't even visible until looked at in hindsight.

Okay

 

[Jack Daniel]

yikes. Is that really the DM advice from 1e?

No wonder there is a generational difference in DMing style. From the perspective of what everyone I know sees D&D as being about, that is the worst advice possible.

Vitally important advice if you're going to run a sandbox campaign where most of what happens in the game is driven by player ambition.

For context, if you read the 1e DMG, Gygax stresses over and over again that letting players easily acquire whatever they may purport to want leads inevitably to bored players and dull campaigns. Something he knew well in 1979 that some DMs still don't grok.

The very same DMing advice restated in friendly, non-threatening, story-centric, modern-day terms would be: find out what your players want, then make their characters go through hell to get whatever it is.

Dismissing this idea as "adversarial" completely misses the point, which is to maintain healthy long-term interest in the campaign.