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

[Reynard]

I just enjoy the conversation.

You do you, but I think it is reasonable to expect that some people will see your "enjoying the conversation" by arguing with the very premise of the thread to be close to trolling.

Now, I don't know what happened in the [rant] thread that inspired this one, but I really wish it would have stayed there. We have the potential to have a good discussion about sandboxes here.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ok - this is perhaps still too vague for me. Are you saying that, in pure sandbox play, there are no end goals for "what the party wants to do"? Or, and I think this is more likely, are you saying that just because an "adventure" has a start (A) and an end (D), it's not considered linear b/c of the many different successful paths to get from A to D (B, C, B+C, B1, B1+B2+C2, etc)?

Again, it varies. Nothing is stopping someone from having a sandbox with linear adventure structures. I think sandbox is largely a non-prescriptive approach. But I think most sandboxes have a combination of sites and situations, not structured adventures. And yes I would say a linear adventure has paths, but also an ending the GM had in mind. In a sandbox, the ending of a given adventure emerges naturally through play.

In terms of end goals, yes, it is what the party wants to do. Sometimes they might meet an NPC and agree to work towards some goal that NPC has in mind, but most of the sandbox campaigns I have been in have been taking initiative and figuring out what goals they want to set for themselves (i.e. We want to go to this city and build a criminal empire).

 

[Micah Sweet]

You do you, but I think it is reasonable to expect that some people will see your "enjoying the conversation" by arguing with the very premise of the thread to be close to trolling.

Now, I don't know what happened in the [rant] thread that inspired this one, but I really wish it would have stayed there. We have the potential to have a good discussion about sandboxes here.

Weren't you the OP of that thread?

 

[jgsugden]

Assuming it won't spoil anything for anyone on here, but what is the hook they never pursue?

They hear about a giant shipwreck. They discover that there is a Kraken in the area. They learn that the Locathah that plague the shores are under the control of the Kraken and that it resides in the shipwreck. They discover interesting / powerful magics and learn that they came from the shipwreck. An important NPC tries to hire them to search the shipwreck for treasure. A few threats they deal with over the campaign have hints in their lair that they came from the shipwreck.

If they travel there they discover the "shipwreck" is just the part of a flying city that crashed into the sea that remains above the waves. It is a significantly sized dungeon to explore. The key features of it are:

1.) They are essentially caged in the city as the Kraken is out there if they reveal their presence too prominently. Thunderwave would be a bad decision, but you're not calling in the Kraken just because you roll a 13 on a stealth roll. This is intended to create decision moments where the PCs have to debate whether to do something the fast and noisy way or slow and quieter.

2.) It is mostly submerged, so there is a lot of underwater combats that are designed to make them think differently. However, many areas are magically protected and maintained and not submerged. Further, there are areas filled with antigravity, a section that takes place in 4 dimensions (which I stole from a friend DM back in the 1980s when I was a teenager ... it is interesting for the right players, but I think the wrong group would just find it an impossible riddle that could bog down the game), and areas devoted to beings that remain trapped within it.

3.) The city belonged to a powerful Archmage of old and contained his collections of the bizarre from across the realms. Many of the threats in the "New Lands" this ship are near arrived there when this city crashed and they escaped. Others remain bound to the city and can't leave their zones.

4.) The thing crashed about 1000 years ago. As such, it contains a lot of information within it about the parts of the storyline that grow out of events from the past. Like Babylon 5, there is a time loop element (although my time travel rules are different) and this would allow the players to get some information about the time loop element.

5.) The "gem" piece of information within it is something that is not essential to the storyline for the campaign - but reveals a major secret of my setting that, if known, changes how players and PCs see some of the key conflicts in the game. To draw a parallel, it is like discovering the Illuminati exist in the Marvel 616 comics universe and that they had a hand in many major events. It is that level of secret - but very different in nature. I do not reveal the details of this secret to the players during the wrap up - only that there were huge secrets to be found there that change how they'd see the world.

 

[KYRON45]

You do you, but I think it is reasonable to expect that some people will see your "enjoying the conversation" by arguing with the very premise of the thread to be close to trolling.

Now, I don't know what happened in the [rant] thread that inspired this one, but I really wish it would have stayed there. We have the potential to have a good discussion about sandboxes here.

If I pointed out all of the posts that I felt were trolling over the years I’d have been asked to leave a long time ago.

There’s like a 3000 post thread on hiding. HIDING?!?

 

[Reynard]

Weren't you the OP of that thread?

Oh, yes, but I noped out on page 2.

 

[overgeeked]

Thanks for this detailed response!

Now, could it be said that a sandbox campaign is one in which the PCs have many choices as to what they wish to pursue AND, presumably, what they wish to pursue usually has some end goal. A sandbox therefore could be defined as a group of loosely connected adventures and activities - if only by the fact that they are all found on the same map/box. Within most of those adventures, in which the party has an end goal in mind, does the playstyle switch from "sandbox" to a "moderate" or "advanced linear" adventure (if I may use some made-up terms from the OP)? Once that goal is achieved or abandoned, we're back to "sandbox" style to find the party's next activity.

No. A sandbox is not some kind of quantum superposition the game is in only when the PCs-players are deciding between hooks to pursue.

 

[Reynard]

There’s like a 3000 post thread on hiding. HIDING?!?

Right? It's crazy.

 

[KYRON45]

Right? It's crazy.

Yes…yes it is.

 

[bloodtide]

funny, you wrote sandbox in there repeatedly, but never rules first... 'In the Sandbox game...' sure sounds like you are explaining a sandbox game

I was not for that text.

You used the word sandbox repeatedly.

Again, prep in no ways means it isn't a sandbox game. Nor does "rulings vs rules" have any impact.

Yes, afterwards I did talk about the sandbox type game.

Sandbox is a word people use to describe the lack of linearity (if that’s even a word). I’m saying that there is always some degree of linear play. And if there is always some linear play….therenis no need to differentiate one style of play from another.

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. And very little of substance would happen in the game, unless the game had rules that forced things to happen, or everyone agreed to have things happen.

But everyone will say they don't play that way....nearly always. Most people will say they play a loose linear game with the illusion of a sandbox....though not use those words, of course.

True or False:
In sandbox play the party shows up and does whatever they want and the Dm has to adjust to that?

This is True Sandbox play.

You are probably not going to find a single way all sandboxes are run though, just like you wouldn't find a single way all adventure paths are run, but that doesn't mean it isn't a structure. As long as there are countless groups playing a given structure, there will be different ways of implementing the structure

I think saying that at a minimum a Sandbox game must share the power equally between all the players. That is all the players of characters and the player DM. No one person, specifically the player-dm, can "just say" things in a sandbox game. Everyone is equal, often under the Rules.

Let me ask the infamous sandbox question: at what point does the "box" apply? What if the players decide they don't want to go to the town, forest, or cave, but decide to find a Spelljammer vessel and fly to Faerun? Or take a portal to Sigil and explore Ysgard? Obviously those are extreme examples, but a certain point, the boundary of what the DM will allow becomes apparent. If at any point, when the DM says there are no available Spelljammers or Sigil portals because the DM does not want to move his campaign to Faerun or Planescape, has his campaign stopped being a sandbox?

Yes, but only as far as it is not a True Sandbox game.

After all, even a sandbox has limits....walls built around it. Without the 'box' part, you just have a pile of sand.

Now, could it be said that a sandbox campaign is one in which the PCs have many choices as to what they wish to pursue AND, presumably, what they wish to pursue usually has some end goal. A sandbox therefore could be defined as a group of loosely connected adventures and activities - if only by the fact that they are all found on the same map/box. Within most of those adventures, in which the party has an end goal in mind, does the playstyle switch from "sandbox" to a "moderate" or "advanced linear" adventure (if I may use some made-up terms from the OP)? Once that goal is achieved or abandoned, we're back to "sandbox" style to find the party's next activity.

No this fails on so many levels.

In the Before Time of the game, the players will pick what they want to do. And by definition any goal is linear. It has to be, otherwise you could never reach the goal.

The difference is the execution.

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

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.