D&D General Sandbox and/or/vs Linear campaigns

[aco175]

I guess like everyone, I have shades of both in my campaigns. I start them in a defined place such as Phandalin and that place has defined people and places. The PCs are forced to be there. I guess they players could decide to turn and leave which might be more a sandbox style, but a jerk move as players. The town has a few set hooks to give them some options of things to do, but each one has a set thing to do which could be all linear like a cave or half linear like a murder mystery. The PCs keep coming back to have more options on things and meet and plan things on their own which get put in place.

There should be some sort of buy-in from the players, and the DM on what goes on. We had threads before on if it is the DMs world or do the players get some say. I am fine with the players deciding on where and what the PCs go and do, but there is also things I have planned based on what the players told me. If I plan for today's game and the players suddenly say that they decide not to go in the cave, but want to wander in the woods looking for giants, the game today might not happen.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

So let's take something like Dolmenwood, a world set up specifically to facilitate fairly open ended hex-crawl play. This includes endless tables of random encounters by zones, rumors, NPC encounters in specific hexes, wants/needs/goals for various factions & characters; etc.

On top of that, it's set up to naturally drop in various of the OSE or community dungeons.

I don't consider this to be linear by default, because a) by and large there's nothing gating the players off from wandering in a random direction within the boundaries of the map (and possibly being eaten by grues, but still) to find adventure; b) well made dungeons may have a goal but the purpose is generally getting treasure out while still alive; and c) there's no plot through line by default.

I think it's really the latter bit that's key. Once you start saying "ok, we're here to rescue the Lady's daughter - and to do that you must a/b/c (but maybe you can skip B, you'll just have a harder time), and that's the purpose of play." Now you're in linear adventure mode IMO.

So, in the end, sandbox play and linear play are not mutually exclusive. One can go into "linear adventure mode" within a sandbox campaign.

I think I'm on board with this gray area.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

In the Linear Game the DM preps for the game, often tons of maps and text and work and effort..even to the point of writing an adventure. And the DM locks in all the details. Before the game starts the DM can tell you the what, why, how, where of the whole 'save the princess ' idea. Who did it, why, how, where she is and all sorts of details. It is all set by the DM....the players have no say. During the game the players must follow the DMs path to find the princess and save her, based on all the details.

The sandbox game....all the details are left open. Often the DM-player provides no details...but may provide a light dusting of vague details. Everything about the whole idea is to be set by the actions of the player characters. Whatever the players choose to do under the idea 'save the princess' becomes the game reality of saving the princess. The DM-player her has little or no power and simply makes what the players tell them to make and have the PCs save the princess.

These are what I would call extreme examples of Linear and Sandbox.

In a linear style, no DM "locks in all the details". That would be nigh impossible. They will most assuredly improvise some things on the spot in response to the PCs activity.

And I would be very surprised if many DMs who espouse a sandbox style play according to the definition that the players are making up the vast amount of the world as the game progresses. What is a DM even doing at the table in that example?

Not to mention the vast ground of play between these two examples.

 

[bloodtide]

These are what I would call extreme examples of Linear and Sandbox. In a linear style, no DM "locks in all the details". That would be nigh impossible. They will most assuredly improv some things on the spot in response to the PCs activity.

I would say bare minimum. All Linear DMs lock in details when they create something. It is not impossible. I wrote a simple 1st level Adventure called Rats! where giant rats infest a town. When I wrote the adventure I pick a spot for the rats nest, and 'boom' that is a locked in never changing detail.

If you have a well written adventure, it needs very little 'improv'.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I would say bare minimum. All Linear DMs lock in details when they create something. It is not impossible. I wrote a simple 1st level Adventure called Rats! where giant rats infest a town. When I wrote the adventure I pick a spot for the rats nest, and 'boom' that is a locked in never changing detail.

If you have a well written adventure, it needs very little 'improv'.

So you've gone from "lock in all the details" to a "lock in a bare minimum of details"? Yeah, I agree with the latter but now you've responded to a point that wasn't made.

 

[Lanefan]

A pure sandbox game would just be random chaos. The players would just do random stuff and the DM-player will just create the world right in front of the characters.

Not at all.

A sandbox, by its very nature, has to have sand in it. In D&D, that sand is directly analagous to the setting created by the DM; and while there still may be borders as to how far that sand extends, within those borders there is sand. Some DMs might not even have any borders, or those borders are so far distant that for play purposes the might as well not exist, at which point the "sandbox" more comes to resemble a sandy beach.

What makes a sandbox campaign different from a linear campaign is that in a linear campaign - to follow the same analogy - the DM doesn't just provide the sand but also tells those playing in the sand the exact specifications of the sandcastle they're going to build and then sits back and watches them build it. Meanwhile in a true sandbox campaign the DM still provides the sand but doesn't much care whether they build a castle with it or draw a picture in it or even throw it in each others faces.

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Other than that, it's hard for me to engage with the thread as posited in the OP as in the first post the OP has defined-used a couple of terms in ways that don't make sense to me.

A -- B -- C -- etc. in any form isn't an adventure, it's (part of) a campaign; where each of A and B and C etc. are themselves adventures. Of course, an adventure itself can be internally linear or non-linear - adventure design is a whole different topic - but rarely if ever is a single adventure ever referred to as a sandbox.

A campaign is also, at least the way I see it, everything in aggregate that happens in play within the same setting that has a reasonable degree of connection with the rest. So if Party A do four adventures while Party B do three then they meet and combine into a big Party C for a while before splitting out again into Parties D and E, lather rinse repeat for years or even decades, that's all one campaign.

 

[Shardstone]

I'd suggest not using ENWorld as the place to try to define things. We can't even agree on what an RPG is, so trying to define things like railroading, linear adventure, or sandbox are going to be harder still.

I mostly run open-world sandboxes. It's something like a mix of your moderate, advanced, and ultimate sandbox definitions. But not exactly.

Pre-made or homebrew world. Work up some notes on the starting town which includes NPCs, factions, situations-hooks, etc. Create a few nearby points of interest to explore and interact with, along with whatever NPCs, factions, situations-hooks, etc those require. Make sure they point to other points of interest or back to the town. Discrete points on an ever-expanding web, basically.

Check in with the players to find out what some of their goals or their PCs' goals are and incorporate them into the setting if they're more quick and immediate or start thinking of how to fit them in later if they're more long-term goals.

Giving the NPCs and factions goals and timers is also important. The PCs don't exist in a static world. I don't need to know what the PCs will do, only what the NPCs will do. Unless the PCs stop them, the snake cult is going to kidnap the prince in one month...and unless the PCs stop them, the snake cult is going to sacrifice the prince one month later. I know the king is going to be pissed if the adventurers fail and even more pissed if the PCs accept the job then abandon it. There is no pre-defined story. Only NPCs and factions with goals and interesting locations. Everything changes when the PCs get involved.

Drop the PCs in the starter town and let them go. Play is usually the PCs bouncing off NPCs and factions, picking up jobs or abandoning them, following their own goals or abandoning them, but all the while they're making an impression on the NPCs, factions, and setting. Action and reaction are key to making a sandbox feel like a living, breathing place. Consequences for actions or inaction. Rewarded for saving the dragon from the princess or hunted by the kingdom for abandoning the prince to the snake cult. Create a drama-tension rich environment and wind it up before dropping the PCs in and seeing what happens. You could rewind back to 1 and use all the same material for a different group and it would play out completely differently every time.

And of course the improv, always so much improv.

I have a stack of modules to drop in if I need them, a stack of random encounter tables if I need them, and the old pulp trope of send in a goon with a sword if I need to stall for time. If all else fails, I can simply put an obstacle between them and their current goal.

The difference between a sandbox and a railroad is night and day. The players have real choices in a sandbox whereas they don't in a railroad. At a guess this is a spectrum and whatever linear adventures are they are either somewhere between the two on that spectrum or orthogonal to that spectrum.

If you're looking for sandbox resources, there's a thread for that. Link to my post there. There's lots of great stuff out there for sandbox play.

Beautiful post.

 

[Tonguez]

I like Fronts as per Dungeon World etc - you get the Grim Portents as your linear milestones, but where the PCs engage is freeform, the DM then reacting with thematic challenges and consequences including consequences for going off track or doing nothing ...

 

[mamba]

In the Linear Game the players have to follow the DMs path towards the goal: the path is the only way to go.

yes

The Sandbox game allows the players to do whatever they want, under the vague linear tent, and no matter what they do it is a path towards the goal. The players are the path.

no, if the players do something else halfway towards a goal, they do not reach that goal, they abandon it and focus on a new one. This is is not a ‘no matter what you do, once you are level 12 you will have defeated the one BBEG’ kind of game

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Not at all.

A sandbox, by its very nature, has to have sand in it. In D&D, that sand is directly analagous to the setting created by the DM; and while there still may be borders as to how far that sand extends, within those borders there is sand. Some DMs might not even have any borders, or those borders are so far distant that for play purposes the might as well not exist, at which point the "sandbox" more comes to resemble a sandy beach.

What makes a sandbox campaign different from a linear campaign is that in a linear campaign - to follow the same analogy - the DM doesn't just provide the sand but also tells those playing in the sand the exact specifications of the sandcastle they're going to build and then sits back and watches them build it. Meanwhile in a true sandbox campaign the DM still provides the sand but doesn't much care whether they build a castle with it or draw a picture in it or even throw it in each others faces.

As long as I can rinse and dry my feet before putting my socks back on, I'm in.

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Other than that, it's hard for me to engage with the thread as posited in the OP as in the first post the OP has defined-used a couple of terms in ways that don't make sense to me.

A -- B -- C -- etc. in any form isn't an adventure, it's (part of) a campaign; where each of A and B and C etc. are themselves adventures. Of course, an adventure itself can be internally linear or non-linear - adventure design is a whole different topic - but rarely if ever is a single adventure ever referred to as a sandbox.

It could be either. But I wasn't saying adventure A leads to adventure B etc...
A is the adventure hook, B is something/somewhere that the party might/should do or go (or not) before moving on, C is same as B, D is the goal.

And I was saying (or trying to say) that's how all the adventures within a particular type of campaign are generally structured. Does that make more sense?

A campaign is also, at least the way I see it, everything in aggregate that happens in play within the same setting that has a reasonable degree of connection with the rest. So if Party A do four adventures while Party B do three then they meet and combine into a big Party C for a while before splitting out again into Parties D and E, lather rinse repeat for years or even decades, that's all one campaign.

Agree.