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?

 

[Emerikol]

......Especially for inexperienced DMs, who don't realize that over-prepping can be just as bad as (if not worse than!) under-prepping, though again, what counts as "over" or "under" varies from game to game and group to group....

While I agree with your overall thesis, I do find under prepping to be a far bigger problem.

 

[Emerikol]

The reason I personally make a distinction between the shared fiction and prep is because at heart games are shared experiences. Sure. I am often constrained by my prep, but it is not tangible or part of the play space in the same way that established fiction is. Once something is part of that shared space I am bound to it on a social level. Players can depend on it. In the process of sharing it is made more real because it no longer belongs to just me.

Perhaps you've found good terms. Shared fiction and prep. Both are campaign truths. Depending on the DM both can be unchanging or changing.

 

[Maxperson]

Perhaps you've found good terms. Shared fiction and prep. Both are campaign truths. Depending on the DM both can be unchanging or changing.

Yep. Saying prep is malleable because the DM can change it, even if he won't, is a distinction without a difference. If he won't change it, the prep is just as "permanent" as something that is permanent.

 

[Runestones]

Party. But with enough variance so that there is a chance of hitting a level that is at the absolute limit of what's winnable. It's pointless presenting the players with one unwinnable scenario after another. But, there should definitely be a scenario where the party is unlikely to win/take huge damage and should use their discretion to escape. As a player, I remember calling your DMs bluff by bowling into something that is just unwinnable, with a "the DM can't kill all the party" mentality. As a DM I always have a 'lose' scenario ready, i.e. "you wake up in a gaol...."

 

[Stormonu]

Is there a D&D term for The Darwin Awards?

The Head of Vecna Trophy.

 

[tetrasodium]

This nice little video on prepping for improv came up in autoplay & it seemed like it would be good for some of the folks following this thread to pick things up

 

[Emerikol]

This nice little video on prepping for improv came up in autoplay & it seemed like it would be good for some of the folks following this thread to pick things up

There is a lot to like and a lot to dislike for me in this video.
1. I definitely like the idea of defining all sorts of great NPCs and their plots up front. I don't choose just one Villain and declare him the "main" villain. He'll only be the main villain if the PCs decide to go after him or her. I just create a lot of potential villains. I create a lot of plots threads that are intertwined. I even create a good number of NPCs that will be allies of the group if allowed to be. Not necessarily on the adventure but just in general. They can be valuable sources of information about what is going on in the sandbox world.

2. I don't care if the party decides to mess with the Thieves guild. I have no agenda in a campaign and there is no natural end planned for my campaign. So I never have where I want the PCs going next in my mind. They go where they want to go. So that is a bit of a strawman for prepping sandboxers. So I would never plot encounters to draw them away from mucking with the thieves guild. If that is what they want to do then do it.

3. I don't get the feeling that this guy runs dungeons at all. I do. I tend to place a lot of dungeons about for the group to find and explore. I stock those dungeons ahead of time. At least sandbox by sandbox. While the group is in sandbox one which may be a 1st through 6th level sandbox, I will be preparing the next sandbox.

4. I have a reason why every dungeon was created. I have a reason why things happen. His discussion about things happening such as events are well marked on my calendar. Caravans are raided, people murdered, people go broke,people get married, people have kids, the world goes on. Some of this is represented by die roll probabilities but not all of it.

5. I don't look ahead even one session to be honest. Obviously, I am aware if they are in a dungeon that it is likely they will continue but it's not guaranteed.

So he exposits a lot of ideas. Some I wholeheartedly embrace and others I do not. My campaigns are successful if you say having fun is the goal. COVID has set me back a bit but in the past I honestly think I could have charged money to play. Maybe not, but I always had more players than I could accept. On occasions I've ran two groups in the same world. That can get tough. So I'm not sure his use of "improve" is his secret sauce. It may be for him and perhaps for some of his group.

I do think a DM has to be quick on his feet. His primary duty in session is as arbiter of the rules. So the group can in theory do anything. The DM needs to be ready and flexible. But I don't think that is what you or him are talking about.

I'll just add again the caveat that if his crew is having fun then he is doing it right. The value of the approach to a game is very subjective.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I'm pointing out that the shared fiction is the only "real" part of the game -- everything else is alterable for any reason, and the choices of the GM, do not change this. It's only when it actually impacts the game fiction that it becomes, in any sense, "real." And, yes, prep can impact play in very subtle ways, but only when it enters the shared fiction with those subtleties.

Bogus. The "shared fiction" is just a theoretical construct. Maybe it has a central place in whatever table-centric model you're working with here to convey your idea of how RPGs work, but have you stopped to consider that this model does not adequately account for every possible play-style?

Not every play-style treats the "off-stage" elements of a campaign milieu as un-collapsed quantum wave-functions. Not every play-style gives supreme priority to whatever broad-strokes, high-level details are agreed upon by the DM and all those playing at a given moment.

There is a milieu-centric model, where the only fictional world that has any "reality" worth a hoot is the one that exists in its totality solely in the DM's imagination, notes, and maybe books or other apocrypha. The players get to glimpse a fraction of the whole at any given moment, but the milieu isn't "quantum," only extant when and where the players are looking at it. Rather, it's persistent.

The basic West Marches campaign setup provides a simple example. If a single DM is running a game for three separate parties (we'll call them A, B, and C) who never interact with each other directly, but whose actions upon the game-world can in turn be felt by the others, there is in no meaningful sense a "shared fiction" between parties A, B, and C—only three separate "shared fictions" during any given game session between the DM and A, the DM and B, and the DM and C. But the reality of the game world is held together by the DM, who is operating (for lack of a better analogy—I hate this one only slightly less than the abuse of quantum mechanics jargon these discussions always spawn) as the "CPU" and "RAM" of the ongoing "simulation." This does not work without the DM's reification of the entire milieu, including those setting-elements never directly encountered by any of the players. If, instead, the setting elements are treated as "quantum" (again: ugh), it's not really a persistent sandbox (which is not to discount the possibility of presenting a convincing illusion of one).

 

[Jack Daniel]

Yep. Saying prep is malleable because the DM can change it, even if he won't, is a distinction without a difference. If he won't change it, the prep is just as "permanent" as something that is permanent.

And let's not forget, either, that there's no special permanence accorded to the "shared fiction" beyond what the group enforces. If DM and the players agree, retcons or even wholesale reality-shifts are a trivial matter.

 

[S'mon]

If a single DM is running a game for three separate parties (we'll call them A, B, and C) who never interact with each other directly, but whose actions upon the game-world can in turn be felt by the others, there is in no meaningful sense a "shared fiction" between parties A, B, and C—only three separate "shared fictions" during any given game session between the DM and A, the DM and B, and the DM and C.

I'm currently running a game with 3 PC groups in same setting much as you describe.
I do think there is a difference between material I've shared with at least one player, and material not shared with anyone. The former is significantly more 'fixed' and I try (very) hard to avoid changing it. Whereas material unshared with anyone remains more like a draft version, subject to change if I have a better idea.

So I don't think I can fully agree with the thrust of your point. Even in a fully persistent milieu, the point of fixation is when material becomes accessible to one or more players.

Edit: I do tend to share a much higher proportion of material with the players than many GMs do though. But stuff like the layout of an unexplored dungeon remains subject to change. And today I did just add a corridor off the map to an explored dungeon, but I'm thinking it was revealed by a cave in since the initial party went in. Adding the tunnel makes it more interesting for the new party now engaged with it.