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?

 

[dytrrnikl]

The thing about choice is it's meaningless without information on which to base your decisions. It is, in effect, just random. And player side there is no difference between random and "the DM chooses". The DM could create a series of encounters, and no matter where the players go on the map run the encounters in the order written. The players would have no way of telling the difference.

To my perspective what you describe sounds an awful lot like Railroading and a rotten or inexperienced GM.

 

[scrubkai]

I have to say as a DM and a player, I prefer sandbox.
This actually mostly comes from the player side. I’m tired of wandering into what should be a really scary place and having a hard fight then winning and going into an easy place and having a normal fight and winning and wandering into an easy place and winning and winning and winning and winning. It’s been close to 20 years since we had a death in my game group not initiated by a player’s desire to change characters and probably 10 since we had to retreat from a fight.

I love the story, but the appropriate leveled area has lost all sense of risk. I read stories for the plot twists. Our games have lost that since 3rd Ed.

Note: just to be clear, we have avoided fights, when it’s clear there are overwhelming forces, but that’s normally telegraphed from a mile away, but once the dice come out and tactical combat starts, it’s always level appropriate for some reason.

 

[Oofta]

I have to say as a DM and a player, I prefer sandbox.
This actually mostly comes from the player side. I’m tired of wandering into what should be a really scary place and having a hard fight then winning and going into an easy place and having a normal fight and winning and wandering into an easy place and winning and winning and winning and winning. It’s been close to 20 years since we had a death in my game group not initiated by a player’s desire to change characters and probably 10 since we had to retreat from a fight.

I love the story, but the appropriate leveled area has lost all sense of risk. I read stories for the plot twists. Our games have lost that since 3rd Ed.

Sounds like you need to have a discussion with your group and your DM, because this seems to be a different issue than sandbox.

I always discuss this with my group during a session 0 - the game can be adjusted to any level of lethality that the group wants.

 

[Emerikol]

Right, so if notes can be altered at any time, then they're not any extra amount of real compared to making it up in the moment -- they cannot be. Instead, what's being smuggled in here is a GM's preference -- and it's perfectly fine to want to have largely unchanging campaign notes -- and this goes to my larger point: if you want unchanging campaign notes, the reason is not because doing so increases the "real feel" of the game, but rather for some other reason.

You guys been busy over the weekend. lol. Sorry I missed out.

I think your term "the fiction" might be where there is confusion. If you mean the story of the adventures of party X then fine of course you can't argue there story includes a dragon they didn't encounter. If though, and here is where a lot of taking it, you mean the reality of your world then you are just wrong. When I prep something and put it into the world it is in the world. It doesn't matter if the players ever encounter it or not. A lot of people are seeing you challenge the latter and of course as a result you are getting pushback.

Now, being able to change something merely because the players don't know it (yet?), doesn't mean a DM will change it. The DM will not change it in fact if they are playing in our style. And when I say won't change it, I mean for that particular period of time. The world moves along so the DM will move along all the PCs over time as well. But the fact on date XYZ, said character existed and was doing something is a truth of the campaign whether the PCs ever realize it or not.

So maybe we can call that campaign truth. I find I don't care for the term fiction anyway in regards to a roleplaying session.

I realize you have a style of play where you change things all the time even when you've prepped it. You have no regard for campaign truth. I accept that is how you play.

 

[Emerikol]

Except this isn't the real world, it's made up entirely, so we can't at all say what exists until it's shared with the group and entered into the fiction.

Perhaps, the fact the DM has experienced the "fiction" as you call it has made it real. When an author writes a book and no one has read it, the fiction exists. It's right there in the book.

The fact the setting is real-world Earth has either already been entered into the fiction, in which case we're on the same page, or it hasn't been, in which case the the GM can change their mind.

Well, some GMs give themselves that option and some don't. If a GM chooses to not change the fiction as a principle then he won't change the fiction. A theoretical ability to change the fiction notwithstanding. The fiction exists as we see it when the DM decides it is a campaign truth.

 

[Oofta]

To my perspective what you describe sounds an awful lot like Railroading and a rotten or inexperienced GM.

Really? You'd rather just roll the dice to see what level of threat you encounter? First level party can stumble into the lair of an ancient dragon with no forewarning? A level 20 party could wander into an area where the biggest threat is a goblin with a dull stick?

I don't do literal hex crawls, but when I give people options of what's next I've given them an idea of threat level and they can always propose something else. If they want to go after the BBEG at level 2 they can, but they will also know the level of risk they're taking. I don't see how that could be considered railroading.

 

[Emerikol]

I kind of mentioned this elsewhere but let me elaborate on sandbox design.

If you remember, the megadungeons where each level of the dungeon gets increasingly harder as you go deeper, this is the way sandboxes work except they encompass both wilderness and disjoined adventure areas.

Near town, you are either in a fairly tame area or a near wildlands area. The movers and shakers of this town have dealt with the immediate threats right outside the walls. So it's fairly safe. As you get further out from civilization though you will encounter ever stronger enemies. For me the general level of bad guys in a true wilderness is around 5th level. Most 8th level groups should not have any trouble traveling overland on long journeys. A 3rd level group would be in serious danger of not making it.

In my initial sandbox area, I put the lower level stuff closer to the homebase and the harder stuff farther out. Most of the obvious for hire jobs are low level. They call you for the harder stuff. You don't advertise for a 7th level group. It's a waste of money. In any region the number available are known and you can directly contact them. Most of the time, a sandbox is there to get a group up to "name" level. 9th or 10th level. After that the group is fully ready to travel the world seeking adventure and you usually introduce them to a much larger sandbox. They often travel to a large city.

 

[Krachek]

Is all this debate should be on meaningful challenge rather than the opposition between sand box/leveled?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To my perspective what you describe sounds an awful lot like Railroading and a rotten or inexperienced GM.

not suggesting that is what the DM does do. I'm saying that is what a DM could do, and players would be none the wiser, unless they have a reasonable amount of information about the choices they are making.

 

[S'mon]

Really? You'd rather just roll the dice to see what level of threat you encounter? First level party can stumble into the lair of an ancient dragon with no forewarning? A level 20 party could wander into an area where the biggest threat is a goblin with a dull stick?

Why would there be no warning? People tend to notice when there are ancient dragons about. If the 3rd level PCs IMC want to go where the ancient dragons are, ok I'll run that for them.

Likewise a level 20 party can certainly enter a safe area, but the GM should use the appropriate play mode for the area - ie not tactical exploration mode, rather a brief summary. The goblin would likely not want to fight, but he might have info. I've seen PCs recruit goblin tribes to their side w good diplomacy.