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

[robus]

I've never run a sandbox but I recently read some ideas that would seem appropriate, the key one being have the players suggest the quests of their players. Initially that would come from their backstories.

For example the character I played in a campaign had fallen afoul of the cities criminal underworld and she was framed for a crime she didn't commit. So her quest might be to return to the city, get revenge and clear her name.

If the other players have similar meaty objectives then they could be woven together during the adventures and a campaign could develop, but because the player characters are leading the quests their input could taken at various points to answer questions and develop twists.

Not sure it's useful but it sounds cool

 

[yakuba]

Some of these are already covered by other posters:

1) Decide on a overarching campaign focus, e.g, inter-dimensional invasion, overthrow the evil empire, get rich or die trying. Get buy in on this idea from the players before beginning to build your campaign.

2) Start the campaign with a definitive act which should open up several paths for further explanation. Don't just have everyone meet in a tavern, or, if you do, set it on fire.

3) Until it becomes clear your players are willing to run the show, always try to lay out 2-4 plausible paths that the players can choose to follow. Pay attention to the choices they make so you can get an idea of what they want to do.

4) Use player backgrounds, histories and known contacts to create scenarios in the campaign.

5) Show your hand. Make sure that you give reasonable hints as to what lies ahead. If there's bandits in the woods, then people in town and on the road should be talking about them. If the BBEG is a 11th level fighter maybe he's known to have killed a giant single handedly. You're moving away from a world where it's your job to make sure everything is killable, so make sure that you're telegraphing danger levels in a much more transparent manner.

6) Keep winding the clock. Have 2-4 important plots that connect to the overall campaign, and make sure that they have a timeline which progresses irregardless of the PC interactions with those plots. Let these events be significant enough that they make the nightly news in your world and the PCs can find out about them.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I plan to shamelessly take advantage of this community's wisdom and knowledge

Being shameless will help you DM more than any wisdom and knowledge we can impart.

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

So sometime next year, then? ;P

I plan to kick it off in my own world as a sandbox game.

Why is it you want to run a sandbox in the first place? Curious to try it out? Your players seem to want it? You've heard bad things about 'railroads?'

 

[Lanliss]

Being shameless will help you DM more than any wisdom and knowledge we can impart.
So sometime next year, then? ;P Why is it you want to run a sandbox in the first place? Curious to try it out? Your players seem to want it? You've heard bad things about 'railroads?'

Not sure when I am actually starting to teach them, as some of them are having technical difficulties right now. Next year is a real possibility, though I hope it is more like late september/early october.

They are fresh, so a sandbox might not be the best idea, but I have wanted to try it out. I have been working on a world for something like a year or two now, and would enjoy being able to run some players in it. I am hoping that getting them fresh will lead to them not being set on a closed mind set. If I can start them early on the idea of thinking for themselves, I might be able to avoid some of the major complaints I have seen in regards to sandboxes.

That said, this is simply preemptive thought. I am not set on forcing them into a sandbox if they aren't interested.

 

[FrogReaver]

Not sure when I am actually starting to teach them, as some of them are having technical difficulties right now. Next year is a real possibility, though I hope it is more like late september/early october.

They are fresh, so a sandbox might not be the best idea, but I have wanted to try it out. I have been working on a world for something like a year or two now, and would enjoy being able to run some players in it. I am hoping that getting them fresh will lead to them not being set on a closed mind set. If I can start them early on the idea of thinking for themselves, I might be able to avoid some of the major complaints I have seen in regards to sandboxes.

That said, this is simply preemptive thought. I am not set on forcing them into a sandbox if they aren't interested.

Maybe, but it may make it worse as they won't have any experience to know what kinds of things are really dangerous and what aren't unless you plan to spend a very lot of in game time trying to explain those differences.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I find "sandbox" to be a term to which many have positive associations but a campaign style for which many have a strong dislike. One of the first questions I was asked when I kicked off my last campaign was how "sandboxy" it would be. I asked the player what he meant by that and he didn't even have an answer.

I've played in (and run) campaigns where the PCs basically stood around trying to amuse themselves because there was no obvious story or plot. I've played (and run) campaigns where once they realized that the group was in control of it's adventures and destiny, each of the players became intensely and personally devoted - to courses of action often diametrically opposed to one another.

My personal experience suggests little value for "sandbox" style campaign, is the takeaway here.

As a result, my compromise is to provide a living world as a background for the characters. I weave subplots and stories that wax and wane in importance but are always present, with recurring NPCs, to give the players a sense of a world that is large and involved.

And I run published adventures, which are often glorified (or not so glorified) dungeon crawls.

I read ahead and I have a general idea of what I'm going to run in what sequence, and that allows me to introduce important NPCs and organizations and cities well ahead of time, so when they become relevant it seems like a natural occurrence in a living world.

My players love it. I find it rewarding. I can tie into their backgrounds and interests and help develop their characters and push forward with their goals without ever having anybody feel like they have no control OR feel like they have no direction. Change a tribe in the adventure to match one the player invented or mentioned in their backgrounds. Change a magic item to have a history closely tied to a character's past. Change an adventure's location to match tales you've told and rumors you've set.

That's how I've been running games for over 20 years. It's a nice balance of basically everything my players and I enjoy about fantasy, stories, and RPGs. It's a learning curve for sure: 20 years ago my reach definitely exceeded my grasp. But you can make it work, and it's amazing when it does.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I haven't run a sandbox game yet, though I've been thinking about it a lot. I tend to run on a "Don't build the world any more than is necessary for the game" approach. I'm not going to tell my players about all the political forces of the game world, unless the adventure actually makes those things relevant, and if I'm not going to tell my players about it, then i'm better off not wasting my limited time thinking about it either.

If i were really going to embrace the sandbox, I think I would have to embrace my player character stories. Major plot lines would be present to provide them with decisions to make, then react according to those decisions. To keep it from being too strictly player focused, i think I would set up one overarching Villian or group of villains that are actively trying to achieve their nefarious goals.

I think with those two things I could have a game that is plot focused without being railroady, and yet feel like a living world too.

So off the top off my head lets say we have a barbarian in the party. The Villain might be subverting the Barbarian's local village council to manipulate them into attacking a nearby town to destabilize the area and allow his agents to seize control. Now we have a big plot hook for the party, that is also a little plot hook for the barbarian character. Even if a the players choose not to swallow the hook the villain will just move on to their next objective, which could affect another player's story.

So I guess that's my strategy to handle the Cons. Lots of little plot hooks that take little prep time and can easily be discarded, and an in game intelligence driving and moving the big plot hooks around.

 

[Lanefan]

Sorry, [MENTION=6698582]yakuba[/MENTION] , I'm picking on your list as a jumping off point for my own...

1) Decide on a overarching campaign focus, e.g, inter-dimensional invasion, overthrow the evil empire, get rich or die trying.

Yes.

Get buy in on this idea from the players before beginning to build your campaign.

No. These are new players, right? Let the overarching focus develop on its own, with or without some nudging from you if needed.

2) Start the campaign with a definitive act which should open up several paths for further explanation. Don't just have everyone meet in a tavern, or, if you do, set it on fire.

Maybe you'll get lucky and one of the players will bring in a character who intentionally goes out recruiting other poor fools to go adventuring...

3) Until it becomes clear your players are willing to run the show, always try to lay out 2-4 plausible paths that the players can choose to follow. Pay attention to the choices they make so you can get an idea of what they want to do.

Even better if you can find a way to somehow interweave these paths such that what's done in one affects the other(s).

4) Use player backgrounds, histories and known contacts to create scenarios in the campaign.

Get a feel for your players first. I've seen players who, given half a chance, would bog the game down in their family affairs. Start simple, and worry about deep histories etc. once you see who's going to survive.

5) Show your hand. Make sure that you give reasonable hints as to what lies ahead. If there's bandits in the woods, then people in town and on the road should be talking about them. If the BBEG is a 11th level fighter maybe he's known to have killed a giant single handedly. You're moving away from a world where it's your job to make sure everything is killable, so make sure that you're telegraphing danger levels in a much more transparent manner.

But by the same token, they're new players: let them make mistakes! If they ignore the signs and blunder into the lich's lair, let 'em have it! That said, provide reasonable escape routes for if-when they do choose to run away.

6) Keep winding the clock. Have 2-4 important plots that connect to the overall campaign, and make sure that they have a timeline which progresses irregardless of the PC interactions with those plots. Let these events be significant enough that they make the nightly news in your world and the PCs can find out about them.

Agreed.

And to add, from the DM side:

Start small. Don't info-dump the whole game world onto these new players all at once; give them a town, a dungeon, maybe a kingdom and-or culture the town is in, and let them explore outward from there at their own pace.

Encourage them to be proactive in choosing what they want to do, and not to always rely on you to give direction.

Be ready to hit curveballs, 'cause once they find their feet you'll get a ton of 'em thrown at you.

And, as they're new players, keep the character/rule options and complications to a minimum.

Lan-"screw it, we're going that way"-efan

 

[Istbor]

Not sure when I am actually starting to teach them, as some of them are having technical difficulties right now. Next year is a real possibility, though I hope it is more like late september/early october.

They are fresh, so a sandbox might not be the best idea, but I have wanted to try it out. I have been working on a world for something like a year or two now, and would enjoy being able to run some players in it. I am hoping that getting them fresh will lead to them not being set on a closed mind set. If I can start them early on the idea of thinking for themselves, I might be able to avoid some of the major complaints I have seen in regards to sandboxes.

That said, this is simply preemptive thought. I am not set on forcing them into a sandbox if they aren't interested.

I am running my own world sandbox style for a fresh faced group. Only one has ever played D&D before. So far, so good. Sure, we are only a week or so in as far as game time, but the players are having fun, and I am having fun. No one yet has died, though they have run up against forces they were not prepared for, and were able to use good sense and tactics to get out.

I pretty much agree with other sentiment here. Broadcast the danger appropriately, and provide plausible ways of escape (or even chances to bargain) from situations that are over their heads currently.

 

[kbrakke]

I have recently begun running games in what I would consider to be a truer sandbox than I have ever run before, and have been loving it. Here is what I do to keep it successful.

1) Make sure there are enough things the players know about and want to do something about.

When we started I simply gave each character two rumors, Keep on the Borderlands style about places, peoples, events, treasure, legends etc. Some were true, some where not. Even now, 8 months later, they are realizing some of their initial rumors were true and some were not.

If you do this, you should prevent one of the major issues you can have in a sandbox which is too many choices, not enough information. When you tell someone they can do whatever they want, unless they are a veteran, or someone who is already comfortable authoring their own story, they will simply be stuck. Why would you want to do X over Y? What could happen if we do X and not Y. By giving rumors they have heard something about X already, and have a goal.

If you do this well:
The players will be actively engaged with the world and want to learn more, and take actions in character to understand more. It is one of the most fulfilling feelings having the players be actively engaged.
If you do this poorly:
The players will be confused and not connect with things. They will be stuck not understanding why they want to do anything.

2) You don't need to tell the players what's going on in the world, but you need to know.

I did a lot of prep work for this campaign (Ok, I mostly did some work near where they started and slowly expanded it out as they explored more). Mostly I made a 10x10 hex map, 12 mile hexes (1 day of travel on roads gets them through 2 hexes at best). For each hex I had some location they could find (Alright, I only have 70 of them done, but they haven't gone near the other 30 hexes yet, I'll deal with that when they get there[Also, full disclosure about 50% of hexes are me taking something from another module and sticking it in there, their two main villages are Red Larch and Phandalin renamed.]), and made an encounter table for each hex type (I did finally finish this one last week, now I'm done, as long as my future adventures only use Forest, Desert, Savanah, Mountain and Swamp, I'm golden). I also made all the power groups in the region, decided what they want and gave them clocks (A concept I barely understand, but have bastardized to use in my game). In this way, as the players adventure and follow up on things they want, the various groups in the region advance their plans. When the player interact with someone from these groups I know what they want.

In this way I do little prep between games, but am still able to maintain the living world around them. The players can then choose what parts of it to interact with, and if they decide to go deep on one thing, I know what they should find.

If you do this well:
The world will feel like something living and breathing. Both you and the players will feel like the world could exist, that actions have consequences, and there is more to find. Travel should feel like an adventure, and the world should feel large.
If you do this poorly:
It will feel disjointed and like there are many deus-ex machinas. Events will seem random, and suspension of disbelief will be gone.

3) Tell your players up front that they can find things that will 100% kill them without thought.

I told them this up front, they have to this point fled from 7 or 8 encounters. They have even fled from encounters that I knew were easier than they could handle because they didn't have any information on these foes.

So for me, the biggest con is: You as the DM need to do a lot of prep beforehand. You should know the world, the people, and the places beforehand. Then you need to figure out how to start the players exploring all this you made. If you don't do it correctly it can feel chaotic, directionless, and like a slog. If you do it well both you and the players should be excited and surprised each and every session.

To give an example from my game yesterday. First, we hadn't met in a month, which is the longest break to date. So I had the players write some short fiction to explore their characters and their motivations. Everyone was on board. People were giving me new plot hooks, describing how they felt about events in the campaign history, making poems filling out backstory, it was a blast. Then, secondly, they set out to deal with one of the many problems they have. First 4 hour segment when they get out of town, random roll, orc bat rider attack.
Now why on earth would orcs be attacking the party so close to their home in broad daylight? The players wanted to know. Well, I already had the answer. Without going in to extensive detail, the party has made waves in many places (Those clocks I mentioned earlier have been ticking) and one of those groups, who happens to be able to order Red Fang of Shagras orcs around wants to press-gang the party to work for them.
So now, after a random encounter roll they have learned more about the world (They managed to capture one orc and get a few details from him). They are now worried about a new threat, and have another hook to follow up on. Completely of their own volition they bought land and are trying to start a business, so now they feel their business is threatened, and I don't actually need to do any more work for this plot line. If they choose to go investigate immediately, the situation will not have changed much, but if they wait, the clocks will tick and I will know what sorts of things could happen to them.

I have lots of words and thoughts about this, and might make a resource for others. But I can say without doubt, if you are willing to put in the initial work, the results are so amazingly worth it.