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

[Umbran]

Sandbox is considered the older and more pure style of play...

Purity is for chemicals and mathematics, not playstyles.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sandbox is considered the older and more pure style of play, having existed prior to Hickman's Revolution and the rise of story-based adventuring. Every OS-style game pushes sandbox style play, while modern games (5e and PF2e) push adventure-path style design. And Enworld looks on all-things OS fondly, so that benefit extends to sandbox play.

But modern sandbox isn't the same as those pre-Hickman modules. And not all sandboxes, even ones calling themselves pure, are the same thing. I think part of the divide, is while many people running sandboxes today are indeed inspired heavily by old school approaches and models, we are far from locked into that mode of play and we take what we feel works, and add what we feel enhances. I think a lot of modern sandboxes for example are a lot more character driven than many of those old modules for instance. And Hickman added things that sandbox people use. The way Strahd is explained in the context of Ravenloft. How he is expected to freely move around, that is an important idea many styles of play embrace, sandbox included. And that is what the living adventure concept comes from that I mentioned in Feast of Goblyns in another thread (the

And this very much is rooted in the original module from Hickman:

I feel like we oversimplify when we talk about Hickman's impact on the hobby. Yes there was definitely a shift to story and Hickman did embrace story, but these styles and techniques are also not petrified pieces of wood or chemicals that can never be mixed together. The is a lot of fruit to harvest from Hickman's approach that can be perfectly portable into a sandbox

 

[soviet]

Linear
DM: step in for a rollercoaster ride

Sandbox
DM: entrance to the theme park right this way

Note that in both cases the players are a passive audience. All the creative decisions are made by someone else. In a theme park you can choose which rides to engage with, and to an extent how you engage with them, but you can only choose from the rides that are there.

 

[Laurefindel]

Note that in both cases the players are a passive audience. All the creative decisions are made by someone else. In a theme park you can choose which rides to engage with, and to an extent how you engage with them, but you can only choose from the rides that are there.

True, and the rides of a theme park can only be concluded in one way (unless you start breaking some rules), but choosing which ride to take and in which order is nonetheless an active part of gaming. Active players don’t have to partake in the creation of the gameword to be considered as such.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Note that in both cases the players are a passive audience. All the creative decisions are made by someone else. In a theme park you can choose which rides to engage with, and to an extent how you engage with them, but you can only choose from the rides that are there.

That just isn't true. Even in the most linear of linear adventures, the players can walk up to that rollercoaster and say "I cast polymorph on it" or "I swing my sword at the passengers" or "I inspect the rollercoaster for flaws". I realize this is getting lost in the metaphor, but there is nothing passive about an RPG. Also a rollercoaster itself is a terrible analogy here because when you are on a rollercoaster, there is very little you can engage with to have agency. But if you are on an adventure path or dungeon crawl there is just a lot more going on there.

 

[soviet]

That just isn't true. Even in the most linear of linear adventures, the players can walk up to that rollercoaster and say "I cast polymorph on it" or "I swing my sword at the passengers" or "I inspect the rollercoaster for flaws". I realize this is getting lost in the metaphor, but there is nothing passive about an RPG. Also a rollercoaster itself is a terrible analogy here because when you are on a rollercoaster, there is very little you can engage with to have agency. But if you are on an adventure path or dungeon crawl there is just a lot more going on there.

Sorry, it says in my notes the rollercoaster has an anti-magic field. I don't think it's realistic that you can swing your sword quickly enough. The DC of your inspection check will be determined by me after you roll, oh sorry that wasn't high enough.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sorry, it says in my notes the rollercoaster has an anti-magic field. I don't think it's realistic that you can swing your sword quickly enough. The DC of your inspection check will be determined by me after you roll, oh sorry that wasn't high enough.

Not my fault you are a terrible GM

 

[soviet]

Not my fault you are a terrible GM

Haha! If only I'd studied the CS&CG more

 

[Umbran]

Note that in both cases the players are a passive audience. All the creative decisions are made by someone else.

No. All the rides were made by someone else. "Making rides" is not the only creativity to be had.

Not everyone on the planet is a good ride designer. Sometimes, the results can be better for the individual participant to allow someone else to take some of the creative decisions, allowing the participant to focus on others.

If I choose to go to a restaurant I like, and then choose from the menu an item a really want to have... yes, technically I might have had more agency if I walked into the kitchen and made my own dish myself. But if I am not as good a cook as a chef, that extra agency may not actually be working for the betterment of my dining experience.

Having made those choices, allowing the chef to handle the work I'm not best at, I am now free to focus on witty repartee and on making wacky sculptures out of balancing forks on each other. And I don't even have to wash the dishes afterwards.

In a theme park you can choose which rides to engage with, and to an extent how you engage with them, but you can only choose from the rides that are there.

Did you ask the players the question of what creative decisions they WANT to make? Or ask what kinds of rides they wanted to ride? Workshop on park design? If the park designer has made sure that the player has the rides they want to ride, does the player care if they didn't design them themselves?

When speaking about player agency, why is the focus on the agency, and not the player?

 

[zakael19]

One thing the boards have made clear to me, to many, linear means crap until proven otherwise, and sandbox gets the benefit of the doubt as ideal until its proven otherwise.

I think linear adventure are a well enjoyed and valid form of play that’s probably easier to make fruitful then full “sandbox/etc” for many. Especially if everybody is sitting down at the table bought into the premise of the linear adventure and has contributed characters that fit well, you’re gonna have a good time!

But if people don’t have this sort of open conversation in the session 0 or whatever and think they’ll have space to explore more of a sandbox and set their own goals, now you’ve got some tension of play priorities. And next thing you know the DM is feeling like they have to shut things down, or players are flailing about because they thought it was a sandbox but it’s actually BioWare style river/lake campaign play or whatever (like, I thought Drakkenheim was a lot more sandboxy then it was).