D&D General Lego Sandbox vs Open Sandbox (and other sandbox discussion)

[Sword of Spirit]

Mine is theoretically Open, with Legos in the mix. The players typically use the Legos, but I occasionally remind them that they are free to go entirely different directions and follow personal goals. I expect we will see more of that happening later in the campaign after certain issues have been reduced.

 

[Emerikol]

OPEN SANDBOX: The DM improvises with the PCs and lays track in front of whatever direction the PCs take an interest in, regardless of whether introduced by the DM or a player.

The DM could generally not predict what the PCs might be doing a few sessions down the road. If the DM does not have a deep understanding of their setting before the campaign, they define the campaign setting as they go. If they do have a thorough understanding (for example, if they run in the Forgotten Realms and have read a lot of lore material and intend to use it), they use the lore as part of their improvisation. This may manifest as ways to add to the direction the PCs seem to go by tying their actions into the lore (if the PCs are seeking out a wizard to cast a spell and the DM knows of the NPC wizard from the published materials that fits the bill) or as a limiter (they decide to search for a wizard to cast a spell but the setting material says there are no wizards of sufficient level within 1000 miles so the DM won't allow one to be found). The element of import here is that the when the PCs are exploring their sandboxes the options available are not planned out in advance, and might be something introduced/inspired by a player contribution that the DM will then need to craft around.

Go with the flow.

Open sandbox is an oxymoron. The term and sandbox means limited to an area, the sandbox. There is buy in from the players to stay in the sandbox which hopefully is well done and large enough.

The LEGO sandbox is just sandbox. The DM builds all kinds of "adventure" opportunities in the sandbox. The players pick and choose. Of course they can build an inn and become innkeepers if they want. I'm not long for that campaign if that is the primary focus though if it's a side hustle it can be a really fun aspect of the game. I've had "business" owning PCs before.

Typical Sandboxes
1. A very large city with secrets in, under, and around. Think Ptolus.
2. A wild lands type setting with various monster groups. Think Keep on the Borderlands.
3. A megadungeon near a town or city that is the primary adventure locale. Castle Greyhawk.

From what I've seen of sandboxes, and most of my games at least start out as sandboxes, the game as the party levels advances to another sandbox. Eventually the party is so powerful a sandbox doesn't really make sense and they advance to a nation state or even regional level.

 

[jgsugden]

When your a master, you're good enough to do all sorts of things. What should an average DM do???

Practice.

While these DMs were very talented, they were also skilled through practice. Some of those skills were developed within the RPG world, but a lot of them came from their professional fields.

Open sandbox is an oxymoron. The term and sandbox means limited to an area, the sandbox. There is buy in from the players to stay in the sandbox which hopefully is well done and large enough...

The terms were just provided as a starting reference point. The efforts to provide a fixed definition for these concepts that is universally agreed upon has never panned out.

My hope for this conversation was to focus on the substance, not the labels.

Eventually the party is so powerful a sandbox doesn't really make sense and they advance to a nation state or even regional level.

I don't subscribe to the theory that a sandbox has to have fixed borders. The metaphorical label doesn't limit the concept - it was used as a rough description. The idea was that rather than being restricted to the tracks laid out on the linear game / railroad, the players could explore anywhere and do anything that they wanted. If they'd called it a playground game rather than a sandbox the meaning would not have changed.

Out of curiosity - when the PCs advance to a high level in your games and get to that national/regional level - how would you characterize the style of the game if not a sandbox?

 

[Emerikol]

Out of curiosity - when the PCs advance to a high level in your games and get to that national/regional level - how would you characterize the style of the game if not a sandbox?

Well it is not completely player driven but I do try to offer options such a rumors of this or that to gauge where they want to go and the type of adventure they are looking for in their game. If they have assets in game that are valuable and need defending then of course on occasion they will be doing that as that is the nature of owning such things.

 

[overgeeked]

I think it's a good general distinction to make, but what's throwing me is this bit:

The planning allows the DM to potentially connect various adventures and better lay seeds for future options - but that provides more structure and tends to push PCs in the direction of the options laid out, instead of allowing them to truly go in any direction.

That's absolutely not my experience either running or playing sandboxes. I run open-world sandboxes almost exclusively. I do drop in modules all over the place. But it's never with the intent of pushing the PCs in any given direction. They are always 100% free to "truly go in any direction" at all times, including in the middle of a module. To me, once you start pushing the PCs towards things or plan story beats, you're no longer running a sandbox.

 

[Charlaquin]

Open sandbox is an oxymoron. The term and sandbox means limited to an area, the sandbox. There is buy in from the players to stay in the sandbox which hopefully is well done and large enough.

The LEGO sandbox is just sandbox. The DM builds all kinds of "adventure" opportunities in the sandbox. The players pick and choose. Of course they can build an inn and become innkeepers if they want. I'm not long for that campaign if that is the primary focus though if it's a side hustle it can be a really fun aspect of the game. I've had "business" owning PCs before.

I once got invited to a game by a friend I met playing Magic the Gathering. Don’t remember the system, but it’s not really relevant. Anyway, I and two of the three other players built fairly combat-focused characters - we had two martial artist type characters and one barbarian-esque Amazon warrior. The other guy wanted to play a merchant and spent all of his character building resources on social and status-related stuff. Then he proceeded to entirely monopolize the DM’s time managing his business. The rest of us were kind of at a loss, wanting to actually do some kind of adventure, while the one dude who decided he’d rather be playing some kind of management sim game was the only one driving the “action” for some reason. It was really weird and boring, and the circumstances surrounding me getting invited were already a bit uncomfortable for out of game reasons, so I never went back. But, I did learn from that experience that yes, people who want a “sandbox” so they can goof around exchanging imaginary goods and services for imaginary money instead of going on imaginary adventures do really exist. Until then I had assumed they were a myth.

 

[overgeeked]

I once got invited to a game by a friend I met playing Magic the Gathering. Don’t remember the system, but it’s not really relevant. Anyway, I and two of the three other players built fairly combat-focused characters - we had two martial artist type characters and one barbarian-esque Amazon warrior. The other guy wanted to play a merchant and spent all of his character building resources on social and status-related stuff. Then he proceeded to entirely monopolize the DM’s time managing his business. The rest of us were kind of at a loss, wanting to actually do some kind of adventure, while the one dude who decided he’d rather be playing some kind of management sim game was the only one driving the “action” for some reason. It was really weird and boring, and the circumstances surrounding me getting invited were already a bit uncomfortable for out of game reasons, so I never went back. But, I did learn from that experience that yes, people who want a “sandbox” so they can goof around exchanging imaginary goods and services for imaginary money instead of going on imaginary adventures do really exist. Until then I had assumed they were a myth.

It's not even limited to sandboxes. There's seemingly a fairly large minority of players who want RPGs to be life sims. Open a bagel shop and RP that. Run a trading consortium and RP that. Traveling merchants. Etc. A whole lot of people seemingly love the slice-of-life style of play. For the life of me I cannot fathom why. I get different people have different tastes. I just don't see the attraction to that at all. It's literally the opposite to everything I play these fantasy adventure games for.

 

[payn]

I once got invited to a game by a friend I met playing Magic the Gathering. Don’t remember the system, but it’s not really relevant. Anyway, I and two of the three other players built fairly combat-focused characters - we had two martial artist type characters and one barbarian-esque Amazon warrior. The other guy wanted to play a merchant and spent all of his character building resources on social and status-related stuff. Then he proceeded to entirely monopolize the DM’s time managing his business. The rest of us were kind of at a loss, wanting to actually do some kind of adventure, while the one dude who decided he’d rather be playing some kind of management sim game was the only one driving the “action” for some reason. It was really weird and boring, and the circumstances surrounding me getting invited were already a bit uncomfortable for out of game reasons, so I never went back. But, I did learn from that experience that yes, people who want a “sandbox” so they can goof around exchanging imaginary goods and services for imaginary money instead of going on imaginary adventures do really exist. Until then I had assumed they were a myth.

I've had a number of Traveller games go awry by players who were determined ot avoid any danger and find the best....checks notes...textile delivery route.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not even limited to sandboxes. There's seemingly a fairly large minority of players who want RPGs to be life sims. Open a bagel shop and RP that. Run a trading consortium and RP that. Traveling merchants. Etc. A whole lot of people seemingly love the slice-of-life style of play. For the life of me I cannot fathom why. I get different people have different tastes. I just don't see the attraction to that at all. It's literally the opposite to everything I play these fantasy adventure games for.

Not everyone plays RPGs because they want to push drama. I like to explore a fantasy world and see what happens. As a GM I like to create that world and let the players engage with it through their PCs. I make sure there are plenty of interesting things in that world they could choose to do, but it's up to them, and I'm fine with PCs establishing a business instead of dungeon-crawling.

 

[Emerikol]

But, I did learn from that experience that yes, people who want a “sandbox” so they can goof around exchanging imaginary goods and services for imaginary money instead of going on imaginary adventures do really exist. Until then I had assumed they were a myth.

I've met the type. I even went once to a DM that way. Note that like your case it was only once for me.

My typical group would have likely killed the merchant in the old days before I banned character against character back stabbing.