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

[Lanefan]

Someone riddle me this:

If in an otherwise fully-sandbox game the players in-character come up with a goal of their own (we're gonna overthrow the queen!) and then take a series of steps toward achieving that goal, have they just linear-ized the game? Or is it still a sandbox in which the players have simply chosen a specific bit of sand to play in for the time being?

 

[overgeeked]

Someone riddle me this:

If in an otherwise fully-sandbox game the players in-character come up with a goal of their own (we're gonna overthrow the queen!) and then take a series of steps toward achieving that goal, have they just linear-ized the game? Or is it still a sandbox in which the players have simply chosen a specific bit of sand to play in for the time being?

It's still a sandbox.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's still a sandbox.

This

Someone riddle me this:

If in an otherwise fully-sandbox game the players in-character come up with a goal of their own (we're gonna overthrow the queen!) and then take a series of steps toward achieving that goal, have they just linear-ized the game? Or is it still a sandbox in which the players have simply chosen a specific bit of sand to play in for the time being?

This would be like saying you lose agency in life and are on a linear path because you chose to get in your car, drive to the store and buy a bag of grapes. Also it almost doesn't get more "I have full agency" than deciding to overthrow the queen and pursue the steps towards that goal. That is both perfectly in keeping with a sandbox and agency. Now if the GM said "The queen? No she moved to Long Island and is now safely governing the kingdom from Planet Earth surrounded by two hundred thousand praetorian guards and secret service agents who are all 20th level wizards and fighters" then there may be some agency issues in the campaign.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

A hex crawl is almost always Linear. But sure you can Sandbox any game.

Yes...okay...this is what is always said. So:

Okay a DM creates a massive game world.. So the game starts at 6PM. At 6:01 the players pick a goal or something to do. Okay....so....at 6:02 after the players have made their pick in the "the amazing sandbox", is the game STILL a sandbox? How? Why?

Like say the players look at the sandbox map and say "we go to the dungeon of Kassth. So the PCs travel to that location and go through a dungeon adventure. So is that all a "sandbox game" just as they players had the freedom for a second to pick "anything" to do?

Well, yes. The players were not presented with a specific direction; they chose their own.

As with so many things, the linear/sandbox descriptions are points in a spectrum, and gameplay takes place in the area between the two extremes. In even the most linear of TTRPG adventures, there is room for non-linearity, where players make choices and the DM improvises. In most sandbox campaigns, there will be plot elements, specific encounters, locations, factions etc that the DM has established ahead of time.
The "purest" sandbox campaign might be a hexcrawl with random encounters/wandering monsters and locations, with no actual plot, but to actually have an entire campaign of that would be pretty rare I believe.

What you are describing as "sandbox" sounds more like collaborative storytelling than anything that I'd describe as a conventional REG like D&D. While D&D does have collaborative storytelling, there is a structure that is not present in what you are describing.

Now of course you are very much entitled to have your own personal definitions of what some words mean, just like Kiyron45 does, that differ from the OP. But the OP did a pretty good job of defining the terms for the purpose of this thread. Why not engage with the discussion in that spirit rather than telling the creator that they are wording wrong because you word differently from them?

 

[Tonguez]

Someone riddle me this:

If in an otherwise fully-sandbox game the players in-character come up with a goal of their own (we're gonna overthrow the queen!) and then take a series of steps toward achieving that goal, have they just linear-ized the game? Or is it still a sandbox in which the players have simply chosen a specific bit of sand to play in for the time being?

Players having linear goals doesnt stop the game being a sandbox, anymore than having NPCs pursuing then own goals makes it linear

 

[Reynard]

Someone riddle me this:

If in an otherwise fully-sandbox game the players in-character come up with a goal of their own (we're gonna overthrow the queen!) and then take a series of steps toward achieving that goal, have they just linear-ized the game? Or is it still a sandbox in which the players have simply chosen a specific bit of sand to play in for the time being?

It's only linear in retrospect. They might have had a plan, but only luck would allow for following that plan to be "linear." Rather, having a goal and working one step at a time toward it using the features of the fictional playspace is essentially the definition of sandbox play.

 

[Staffan]

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

And vice versa. You could have a campaign where the overall goal is set as well as certain milestones (even if they're only known to the GM), but parts of it are smaller sandboxes. For example, maybe the PCs have learned that the Emerald Claw are up to no good in Thronehold, and need to deal with their operations there before moving on to another thing. But exactly what they do in Thronehold is up to them, and not everything in Thronehold is about the Emerald Claw – there are lots of factions there, each with their own different goals and methods. That's a sandbox as part of an overall linear campaign.

And to be fair, in D&D the limited sandbox is probably preferable, on account of the massive power difference between low and high level. I am reminded of the old computer game series Quest for Glory, where each installment feels fairly sandboxy but is actually pretty linear – you can roam the games pretty freely, but there are many places where you need to do A before doing B which in turn allows you to do C. But it feels sandboxy because you're rarely prompted on where to go – it's more that you'll run into something you can't handle and then need to wander about until you find the solution. And while you're doing that you'll run into other seemingly unrelated things. But anyway, what I was getting at was that the game series has five different parts that each have a specified ending, and at the end of each (other than part V) you move on to the next game which takes place in a completely different region of the world. So of course you can keep the skills, spells, and (some of) the items you had in the last game, but the new region is calibrated against that power level so a character that could kick the butt of anything Spielburg had to offer is still pretty vulnerable to the dangers of Shapeir.

 

[Lanefan]

It's only linear in retrospect. They might have had a plan, but only luck would allow for following that plan to be "linear." Rather, having a goal and working one step at a time toward it using the features of the fictional playspace is essentially the definition of sandbox play.

Glad to see that so far every answer to my question has agreed with my own take.

 

[Reynard]

And to be fair, in D&D the limited sandbox is probably preferable, on account of the massive power difference between low and high level.

This is a good point. Already in my 5E sandbox, u am running into the problem of PCs leveling up too quickly. They are going to level out of their "zone" before they ave a chance to explore it.

 

[Tonguez]

This is a good point. Already in my 5E sandbox, u am running into the problem of PCs leveling up too quickly. They are going to level out of their "zone" before they ave a chance to explore it.

So would you say Milestone leveling is better for Sandbox play?