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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nightspaladin" data-source="post: 5283126" data-attributes="member: 55206">Just because you sandbox does not mean that you can't shelter your players from the higher level encounters until later. Sandbox doesn't mean that the characters are just dropped into the world next to epic level threats and you hope they don't run into them. Unless your players are starting next to Mordor or some other place of irrevocable doom, the story should still have a good narrative. The only difference in a sandbox is that you aren't dictating where that narrative goes so much as setting up options and letting the PCs stumble into a story. A sandbox means that you build a world of locations and threats to the area. This often includes quest or story clues that are available for the PCs to follow. The trick is that you don't know which ones they will follow, or how they will interact with the area at all.So for example.... say there is a big scary ancient red dragon in your mountains to the east of your starting town. If you don't want your players trying to jump it at 4th level, don't include any info or hints about it until they are closer to the level.  Their starting town, may have 50 plot hooks that you create and they should all be relatively low level. Once they start off playing in your sandbox, you will have time between adventures to start creating repercussions of their actions and opening more of the area up to them. Or....4e does a great job of restricting movement options, so that Red Dragon lair might just not be reachable without flight, a paragon or better sort of power.For the 4e encounter model, what I would do is create sample encounters from the random monster tables you may be using. create 5-10 of them per area, and build them quickly with 4e monsters between party level n-1 to party level n +5. If you roll an encounter from the list that is a little higher than it should be, you can always drop the damage down on the fly or remove a mob or two.A list of 10-15 pre built encounters they might stumble into, a good starting area where there is plenty to do and learn about, 30-50 hints, rumors, job offers, etc, that may take the players to these roughly fleshed out areas you have created nearby and the desire to roll with the punches and change the plots you made up as you go are all you need to start a kick ass sandbox game.</blockquote>

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