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?

 

[happyhermit]

His latest Kickstarter project got canceled because people (including other contributors to the project) found out that one of the contributors /consultants on the project was someone who is currently persona non grata in the gaming /streaming world.

There was enough outcry that the projected was canceled.

Yeah, I didn't mean to skip over that, it's just that in the fallout there are certainly some questions about how he used his position at Kickstarter.

Yeah, as I noted, there's a wide acceptance that different cuisines exist, and even a strong movement to sampling them.

There are still areas of the world that largely are only familiar with their "traditional" cuisine, which is what I was referring to. Their frame of reference largely consists of that.

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.

Depending on the context, since you asked, I would probably rather say something like "I don't know if you have experience with other systems, but I find ..." and just get to the point of what I am saying.

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.

Yes, it often is used as a trap, to discount people's opinions.

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.

Err, ok. You are saying I am using my experience with the systems 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.

You asked, and I said I don't see the point in listing my issues about the systems. I have done it many times before and they are some of the least productive conversations I have had on the internet, and damn that's saying a lot. I largely avoid talking about those systems because of how unproductive and acrimonious it usually is. The reason I spend more time in the D&D forum is in part to avoid being sucked into those types of discussions with zealous proponents of certain types of play.

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....

I never insisted I have the high ground, I pointed out what sounded "elitist" (those statements still do to me) and that the group advocating this view has a history of "elitist" statements (which you more or less agreed to AFAICT).

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yeah, I didn't mean to skip over that, it's just that in the fallout there are certainly some questions about how he used his position at Kickstarter.

There are still areas of the world that largely are only familiar with their "traditional" cuisine, which is what I was referring to. Their frame of reference largely consists of that.


Depending on the context, since you asked, I would probably rather say something like "I don't know if you have experience with other systems, but I find ..." and just get to the point of what I am saying.


Yes, it often is used as a trap, to discount people's opinions.

Err, ok. You are saying I am using my experience with the systems to level accusations of elitism?


You asked, and I said I don't see the point in listing my issues about the systems. I have done it many times before and they are some of the least productive conversations I have had on the internet, and damn that's saying a lot. I largely avoid talking about those systems because of how unproductive and acrimonious it usually is. The reason I spend more time in the D&D forum is in part to avoid being sucked into those types of discussions with zealous proponents of certain types of play.

I never insisted I have the high ground, I pointed out what sounded "elitist" (those statements still do to me) and that the group advocating this view has a history of "elitist" statements (which you more or less agreed to AFAICT).

Well, I suppose the attempt to blanket shut down discussion you disapprove of, including leveling insults, isn't terribly surprising. For someone that wishes to complain about elitism and how zealous others are, you sure have a good handle on the gatekeeping techniques.

 

[Lanefan]

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?

That's just it, though: a well-prepped DM can improvise because the underlying framework (the prep that's gone into the setting) is solid enough to support it, meaning that any mistakes are going to be relatively small.

IME the problems arise when you're trying to improvise the framework as well. I hit this on occasion when a party unexpectedly does something that puts them on a different plane, the underlying framework of which I've never given much thought to. So I wing it, because I've got no choice; and the players can hear the "flap flap flap" as I frantically try to stay aloft. And as I'm not that great at remembering what I dream up on the fly* and am atrocious at in-game note-taking**, yeah - I work better when the setting at least is nailed down ahead of time, and preferably the adventure as well.

* - for example, I'll on-the-fly name an NPC the party's dealing with and then forget that name an hour later when said NPC comes up again.
** - and before someone suggests it, my players aren't big on in-game note-taking either unless it's important; I'm not going to ask them to write down everything I say.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Truth be told, I usually see it as a trap question and thus far haven't often been proven wrong.

(not saying you in particular have done this - I'm not sure you and I have ever even had this particular question-answer exchange - but others have repeatedly used this question as a trap in these forums, targeting other people besides just me)

 

[Lanefan]

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.

I agree up to here.

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."

In a case like this, where they really do manage to get to where the map is blank, I'll wing it for the rest of that session and then fill it in during the week such that by next session there's a map and some prep (and hopefully everything I said last session still makes sense!)

Why would I wing it rather than stop the session? Because having the session grind to a halt because you've explored too far doesn't exactly encourage the players/PCs to explore, does it?

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.

Yeah, this bugs me too as a player, if something is too-obviously tailored for or against one or more particular PCs. I specifically try (and most of the time succeed, I hope) to not do this as DM.

The exception, of course, is if this tailoring is a known thing going in, as in: "Aloysius, your destiny has come due: you and your friends must journey to the Core of All Evil where your ancestor died and there lay his spirit to rest". Here, the adventure has clearly been designed around one particular PC and all involved have been made aware of this, and thus tailoring said adventure to that PC is fair game.

 

[Lanefan]

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

Sometimes yes, sometimes no; as some DMs are simply much better at seamlessly moving from prepped material to winging it and vice-versa than others.

Edit to add: never mind that the randomly determined ones are always confused, the prepped ones always act with clear purpose, and the imagined ones can be disbelieved just like any other illusion...

 

[S'mon]

Re status quo sandboxing in 5e D&D, I think the players should be made aware of the 4 Tiers of Play, and have reasonable hints about the Tier an area generally falls into. Then they can decide if they want to play up or down a Tier - Tier 2 groups can certainly survive many Tier 3 encounters, and Tier 3 can survive many Tier 4. Generally it's only at Tier 1 that PCs can't at least survive long enough to run away.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If your sandbox is a generic fantasy land it doesn't really make much sense to have many threats higher than tier 1, otherwise you need to explain why all those powerful monsters haven't exterminated the entire population. Even a single dragon in the region is going to dominate the ecology.

 

[Ibrandul]

I’m up against this problem right now, as I prepare to start running a campaign of Princes of the Apocalypse.

For those unfamiliar with that adventure, it’s a sandbox multi-dungeon crawl. It’s a great book that still holds up in a lot of ways, but it deserves its poor reputation, which rests on two things: the absolutely DM-unfriendly way the info in the book is organized (which I won’t go into here), and the problematic nature of sandbox dungeon crawls.

There are a bunch of dungeons you can access in any order (within the chapter they’re currently in; for example the first chapter is levels 3 to 6). The problem is, each dungeon is designed for a specific party level. So at the start of the campaign, when the party is at 3rd level, they could go to the 3rd-level dungeon—or they could easily wind up in the 6th-level dungeon instead. There’s nothing to stop them, and, at least in the module as written, there’s nothing even to signpost that they should do this one before that one.

It seems that many DMs running PotA choose to railroad their parties into doing things in level order. I don’t want to do that, but I also know my players can’t possibly take on a level 6 dungeon at 3rd level.

What I really want is a “level adjuster” for the campaign, so that each dungeon would include info on how to run it for a party of each level that could access that dungeon. This would make thematic sense (unlike the Shire/Moria example in the OP) because the cults in charge of those dungeons are supposed to be growing in power as time passes. You hit the fire cult first? OK, that gave the air cult more time to beef up.

But that’s a ton of work—I find that it’s harder to bump a whole dungeon up three levels than it is to just make a new dungeon from scratch.

 

[Emerikol]

Thanks for this detailed reply. I think you've made a mistake in assuming others aren't very aware of this structure -- I certainly am, and have used it in the past and believed it to be the best way (obligatory "for me") way to approach play. However (and you knew this was coming), there's an interesting bit here where I think the actual reason for preferring this is somewhat different from the touted reason, that being that the world feels more believable when done this way.

And that can be illuminated in a specific moment of play. For example, if your party enters a new town, one you have no prior experience with, and you ask around to find if there's a tavern in town, can you tell, in that moment, if the GM makes it up right on the spot prompted by your ask or if it's in the notes? Let's assume that if it's in the notes the GM is well prepped and recalls this fact without reference, or that the on the spot GM makes a show of rustling papers behind the screen to look like they're checking notes. I submit you can't. I further submit that it's impossible to tell, in any given moment, what method of content creation is being used. And, if this is the case, if you can't tell at any given moment if something is happening, then it becomes increasingly hard to argue that it's the approach. Sure, there's an argument that it's too small to discern in the moment, but adds up over time (not terribly convinced this is a useful argument, but it can be explored if someone wants to) or that, over time patterns of generation will occur that expose the man behind the curtain (again, I think this is somewhat weak, but stronger than the previous, at least for certain things). But, if you can't tell in the moment -- if play is just as fun and rewarding before you find out, then the answer to why this matters isn't really that it creates a more believable world, but rather something else.

I have to strongly disagree. I know both our experiences are anecdotal but I don't doubt within twenty minutes of a session probably sooner I would know the DM is winging it. So again, I don't doubt a good enough ad libber in theory, take God for example, could fool me. Those ad libbers are very rare in my opinion and I've yet to meet one. I've met quite a few that thought they were good at it though. It's why I mostly DM. I can't tolerate the slipshod job most other DMs put forth. It's also why I think I'm a popular DM.

So the question is -- how do I detect that the DM is making it up? Interesting question and I will make some suggestions but that is beside the fact that I am detecting it. If you had a pack of cards and secretly drew one and told me to guess, and I had a really high rate of success that fell well outside the bounds of normal chance then you'd surely suspect I had a means of detecting the card even if in all honesty I couldn't tell you how.

But here are some possible reasons
1. Lack of maps. Lack of diagrams, notes, etc...
2. Hesitation when NPCs are asked questions they ought to know.
3. Major hesitation or trite answers when questions about places farther away.
4. Inconsistent encounters, events, etc...
5. Lack of depth in NPC's motivations, feelings, connection to the world.