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<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 6062755" data-attributes="member: 6688858">The game should provide a basic player direction with its reward mechanic IMO. In D&amp;D your character becomes more powerful when you do certain things, so in the absence of other objectives the players should try to do those things. Depending on edition, this leads to default PC goals of treasure-hunting and monster-slaying. You can cover all the &quot;pillars&quot; of D&amp;D play and have a great game that feels pretty resonant with sword &amp; sorcery heroic fiction with just this basic premise IME. And it requires zero player pre-game story prep (I can believe that some players really enjoy deliberately designing their PCs to be thematically interesting, but I think most are uninterested and with some it's like pulling teeth).I don't think sandboxing necessarily requires more prep time than a railroad. It depends how you approach it of course. I usually use some kind of setting product as a basis, so what I have in mind is the prep time comparison between running a megadungeon or a city-crawl and an adventure path, in which case I think sandboxing definitely requires less prep. But even if you're starting from scratch, you can build a sandbox piecemeal with the expectation that the PCs will eventually interact with all of the stuff, in which case you're not wasting anything, and the prep is basically the same as a more plot-based game, with simply less attention paid to the quality of the overall story.As a clarifying note, I don't want to come across like I'm criticizing any way of playing as wrong. As always, play what you like. I just have a suspicion based on my experience that many DMs overestimate how much the quality of the story matters to the players in their games.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 6062755, member: 6688858"] The game should provide a basic player direction with its reward mechanic IMO. In D&D your character becomes more powerful when you do certain things, so in the absence of other objectives the players should try to do those things. Depending on edition, this leads to default PC goals of treasure-hunting and monster-slaying. You can cover all the "pillars" of D&D play and have a great game that feels pretty resonant with sword & sorcery heroic fiction with just this basic premise IME. And it requires zero player pre-game story prep (I can believe that some players really enjoy deliberately designing their PCs to be thematically interesting, but I think most are uninterested and with some it's like pulling teeth). I don't think sandboxing necessarily requires more prep time than a railroad. It depends how you approach it of course. I usually use some kind of setting product as a basis, so what I have in mind is the prep time comparison between running a megadungeon or a city-crawl and an adventure path, in which case I think sandboxing definitely requires less prep. But even if you're starting from scratch, you can build a sandbox piecemeal with the expectation that the PCs will eventually interact with all of the stuff, in which case you're not wasting anything, and the prep is basically the same as a more plot-based game, with simply less attention paid to the quality of the overall story. As a clarifying note, I don't want to come across like I'm criticizing any way of playing as wrong. As always, play what you like. I just have a suspicion based on my experience that many DMs overestimate how much the quality of the story matters to the players in their games. [/QUOTE]

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