D&D 5E Pros and cons of a sandbox game, and what to do about them?

[Lanliss]

I plan to shamelessly take advantage of this community's wisdom and knowledge, so I have some basic questions with complicated answers. I will be running a game for new players, and after some time teaching them the rules I plan to kick it off in my own world as a sandbox game.

What are the pros and cons of a sandbox game?

How can I maximize the pros?

How can I minimize the cons?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

A big con usually is lack of focus, some groups need to be on the railroad or they will never do anything.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Also usually in a sandbox the group can run across foes that far outclass them and some have a POV that they will only encounter level appropriate foes and that running is not fun.

 

[Nagol]

I'm a huge proponent of sandbox games for D&D.

Let's start with Cons

CONS

• typically a larger upfront investment from the DM
• the DM cannot become married to any single plot/scene since there is an excellent chance it won't happen.
• a fair amount of the situations/scenarios will go unremarked
• analysis paralysis on the part of players becomes a risk

PROS

• potentially higher engagement from players
• the campaign develops in decidedly unexpected ways based on player choice
• generally lower inter-session investment from the DM

 

[TwoSix]

Cons

All the feral cats.

 

[Nagol]

There are a lot of really good previous threads on this topic. Here's the first one I found http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?410552-Sandbox-Play/page1

 

[Istbor]

I endorse Nagol's list. I also agree with Flexor's point.

Specifically, a lack of focus, especially if your players are not accustomed to a sandbox style game.

What I like to do, and perhaps this will get some rotten tomatoes thrown at me... is to railroad them.

I am not talking about the whole time, but simply a short introduction in the beginning. Likely a hook for one of your larger story archs, made to set the stage, and to even suggest additional hooks to other plot lines and areas of your world.

And example from my current campaign is that the players start out at a festival. There, an important figure(s) are targeted and attacked. Depending on if the players save these people, the story and the initial hooks may change. The players learn of a plot to kill this person, and also about another shadowy group with their own agenda. These are two different (but slightly woven together) plots/adventures.

The idea is that this intro get the players on one or more of the larger hooks you have prepped for or have going on in general for your world. Have more. Case in point, I have three or four other large hooks/adventures the players may have heard of but are not currently explorer or pursuing.

Which kind of goes into my best suggestion for someone going into this. Make a lot of different adventures and plots. As Nagol said, don't expect many of these to be the focus. Heck, don't expect any of them to be the focus. I have made up towns/ruins/legends in passing when NPCs are asked questions, completely in passing, and my players have focused on that. Something for which I had nothing planned, but now we need to visit and flesh out.

It can be fun, but it requires some thinking on your feet.

It may seem like a lot of beforehand work, but if your players are into the world you made and are having fun, all that extra detail and work can really impress.

Edit: Just want to add... and maybe it is a little bit mushy, but believe in yourself. It can seem pretty daunting staring at a blank world. Rely on creativity, not just from yourself, but from your players as well, as they help build this thing you are creating. I have seen of some of your posts and ideas Lanliss, I think you can totally pull this off well!

 

[Irda Ranger]

Sandbox games are great, but make sure the players understand what is required of them.

I find it's very helpful if campaigns have clear goals and objectives. Even if the goal is "acquire as much loot as possible", make sure everyone knows that (don't assume, especially with new players!) so they can evaluate quest opportunities. Have the players sit down with you and work out what kind of campaign they want, or at least are willing to play in. This will effect the kinds of locations you build. For instance if you make a bunch of dungeons and the players decide they want hard boiled detective fiction, you just wasted a lot of time.

It's easy for players to mis-judge how difficult some locations are, even experienced ones. Telegraph, telegraph, telegraph. If there's an Adult dragon laired up in a particular mountain, make sure some villagers tell the PCs about it. "The thing's as big as a house! I saw it eat an ogre in one gulp!"

Make sure there's a reason everyone is adventuring together. Have the players help you write the "launch" fiction. It doesn't really matter to much what it is, as long as everyone buys into it. You just need a launchpad to explain why everyone is together. In my next campaign I think I'm going to have everyone Shanghaied into a "clearing expedition" where the local authorities assign people to teams and banish them from the city "on pain of death" until they come back with a certain number of orc heads. They're tattooed with a magical tattoo that causes excruciating pain if they separate but allows them to transfer 1-6 HP from themselves to anyone else with the same tattoo within 30' once per LR.

 

[FrogReaver]

I plan to shamelessly take advantage of this community's wisdom and knowledge, so I have some basic questions with complicated answers. I will be running a game for new players, and after some time teaching them the rules I plan to kick it off in my own world as a sandbox game.

What are the pros and cons of a sandbox game?

How can I maximize the pros?

How can I minimize the cons?

I tend to dislike sandboxy type games. So I can speak more to the cons from my perspective.

1. It's much harder to make informed decisions.
2. Overload of choices and most not particularly interesting and the ones interesting to a specific character/player are rarely interesting to everyone.
3. There are rarely any decent simulation type mechanics in the game for what kinds of consequences my actions will have which feeds back into the informed decisions and overload of choices problem.

So my advice would be. Start the sandbox off with a bang. Don't start it out as an open world where the players can do anything but don't have any real objectives yet. (lack of informed decisions and overload of choices in most sandbox starts).

Give the players some initial boundaries and expectations. Then let the story evolve and them cross the boundaries later. For example you may give them a subset of NPC's they really trust and should be willing to help/save. You may introduce a few known bad apple NPC's that they players know. Let everything else evolve from there. Maybe some of the bad apples aren't really bad apples and maybe 1 of the people they trust isn't soo good. Then the players get to plan and react and will have a bit more informed decisions and still plenty of choices but not necessarily an overload that seems to far and distant for their characters to be personally concerned with.

 

[Oofta]

I generally try to sandbox-like games. Probably not "pure" sandbox, but close.

What do I mean? Well, I generally don't assume my players will do "X", and I don't really care if they choose to defeat "Y".

From a general campaign structure standpoint I normally just set up my region (which tends to expand as the campaign progresses). Who's who? What are the main 2-4 factions? What are the high level conflicts and opportunities that will provide opportunities for my PCs?

I then come up with a quick-list of NPCs, generally a dozen or less. I don't need to name every butcher, baker or candle stick maker in the town. Just well known individuals that they will need to discuss or run into. In also keep a list of NPCs handy in case they do want to talk to the butcher, the baker or the candle stick maker.

The trick for me is to have a general outline while providing only the bare minimum of details that I need. As the game progresses I take notes.
For example the baker's name was Gary and he's really an assassin. Why? Because someone made a joke about how his baked goods were "to die for" and "wouldn't it be funny if he really did kill people that way"? Pay attention to what your players are chatting about, frequently they make some great suggestions.


At the end of most game sessions I then have a discussion about what they would like to do next. I'll dangle a few plot-hooks, or ask if there's something else they want to pursue so that I can prep for the next game.

If direction changes in the middle of the game (which happens) I may reskin enemies. They decided to go after the orc raiders last time, but then decide at the start of the next session to spy on Gary? Well it turns out that they discover Gary is an assassin, and his gang is mostly made up of half-orcs who use the same stats as the orcs I had planned for.

The orcish fortress? Morphed into the thieve's base of operations. Or I just wing it.

The pros to this approach

• I minimize "extra" work outside of the game. Most (not all) things get used, if not necessarily in the manner I expected.
• People have a greater sense of agency, like their actions matter.
• The players (often inadvertantly) help me create the world.

Cons

• I have to make things up on the fly on a pretty regular basis. Fortunately, practice makes perfect. Or at least better.
• Sometime ideas I think are really awesome never get used. I thought the goblins with purple hands would really catch their imagination, but it was not to be.
• I've been accused of railroading. OK, the player who said it was a little odd, but he thought I railroaded them because they never caught me off guard, because I rarely had to stop the flow of the game.