D&D General Sandbox Campaigns should have a Default Action.

[Scott Christian]

By your logic then there is no such thing as a prepped game. All games ultimately rely on impromptu material no matter how much you prep in advance. And anything that exists in a prepped game, also can exist in an impromptu game. So the division is meaningless. There are just games. That is all there is.

You are correct. That is my logic. There is no game that is all prepped. There are definitely campaigns that follow the prep a majority of the time. There are others that follow the not prepped most of the time. The stuff is mostly made up on the fly using imagination and/or tables. Both of those can be defined.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Same thing happens in a linear adventure.

Just like a linear adventure.

Like almost all encounters in a linear adventure.

Sorry, but this happens in all games, be it adventure paths, linear adventures, hexcrawls, etc. My humble and sincere suggestion: go back and read your qualifications for a sandbox. Then see if those same qualifications aren't in all other styles.

I stand by my claim. There are two styles: prepped and not prepped. Most of the time it is a mixture of the two.

I might not just be doing a good job offering a definition. That doesn't mean there isn't one. Because I can certainly recognize a sandbox when I am in one, when I see one, or when I am running one, versus an investigation, an adventure path, etc. I don't remember exactly how I phrase it but it was probably something along the lines of players have full freedom to explore and do what they want, to set their own agenda, to not engage 'the adventure' to have an impact on the setting, etc. In a linear adventure the whole point is there is an adventure to be had, and players expect to find the threads to that adventure and stay on the path. It is also expected to have a structure to it that is discernible (a set of encounters that all make sense and lead somewhere, a set of events that get more dramatic etc). A sandbox is much more open, but also a lot less concerned with those structural expectations. So the upside is the players can indeed go where they want, set out on any adventure they want, engage any element of the setting they want. If they suddenly decide to start a haberdashery empire then that is normal and expected in a sandbox. That isn't normal and expected in a linear adventure. And if linear adventure opens up enough that players are free to do all these things without any conceit of play constraining them, then they are most likely in a sandbox.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I stand by my claim. There are two styles: prepped and not prepped. Most of the time it is a mixture of the two.

This claim makes zero sense at all. It has almost no utility. Giving someone 'adventure path' provides a clear pathway to prep what they need. Saying all they need to do is either prep or not prep, tells them nothings. Telling them they need to prep enough material for an open sandbox, where the players can explore whatever they want, gives you a much better idea of what to prep. Not only that but these also come expectations in terms of how they are run. They are clearly distinct things. You can divide anything you want into two groups. You can do that with literally anything. That doesn't mean there won't be clear categories in between or categories that cut across both those divisions.

 

[Scott Christian]

Players choosing what they want to do is the heart of play, but how much of a choice they have, what kinds of choices they have, what their expectations are in terms of what the GM brings to the table and how, those are all dependent on different styles and approaches like sandbox, adventure path, monster hunts, situational adventures, investigations, etc.

All those approaches can be prepped heavily or made up of mostly impromptu playing.

I personally believe, if you want to pin the definition of "sandbox" down to completely amorphous terms that just relies on variables no one is able to specify, that just proves my point.

 

[Reynard]

Sorry, but this happens in all games, be it adventure paths, linear adventures, hexcrawls, etc. My humble and sincere suggestion: go back and read your qualifications for a sandbox. Then see if those same qualifications aren't in all other styles.

Oh, I see, you think that a "sandbox" is a list of ingredients. It's a form that, yes, absolutely includes a lot of the same material a linear adventure would include. It is the method and nature of the interaction with those elements that determines where a particular campaign might exist on the "sandbox to railroad" continuum.

And it doesn't matter one whit whether some, all or none of those elements are prepped since "prep" isn't a requirement for "sandbox."

 

[payn]

This thread has gotten interesting all of a sudden. A lot of folks think the second you prep, the game ceases to be a snadbox. Yet, they find the idea that games are mastered by prep or no prep to be lacking nuance. Hmm,

 

[Reynard]

This thread has gotten interesting all of a sudden. A lot of folks think the second you prep, the game ceases to be a snadbox. Yet, they find the idea that games are mastered by prep or no prep to be lacking nuance. Hmm,

I hope you aren't referring to me. Way back earlier in the thread, my argument was simply that a campaign did not HAVE to be prepped to be sandbox. It was another poster who said you must create EVERYTHING in the sandbox otherwise it was some other animal.

 

[Scott Christian]

This claim makes zero sense at all. It has almost no utility. Giving someone 'adventure path' provides a clear pathway to prep what they need. Saying all they need to do is either prep or not prep, tells them nothings. Telling them they need to prep enough material for an open sandbox, where the players can explore whatever they want, gives you a much better idea of what to prep. Not only that but these also come expectations in terms of how they are run. They are clearly distinct things. You can divide anything you want into two groups. You can do that with literally anything. That doesn't mean there won't be clear categories in between or categories that cut across both those divisions.

I agree with you here. There are times when categories aren't clear. There are times when things cut between the two.

My statement though, holds. There are two sides. And they are mixed. But we can definitively say there are leanings to one side or the other.

Whereas, you can't say this about sandbox vs linear. You could give any advice to DMs on what to prep without resorting to a label, and it would probably be for the better. It would probably make it more concise. Such as: You need to create a small town, make sure it has a few interesting NPCs, create a rumor table, and then three areas to explore around the town. Is that linear or sandbox? It doesn't matter. Is it prepped? We won't know until after they play. Because some players are going to decide to try and burn the town down and kill all the guards.

And regarding adventure paths, I have seen more of those become sandboxes than I've seen sandboxes stay sandboxes. And truth be told, why does it matter that WotC wrote the prep or the DM? (Outside of working in character arcs, which many DM's do anyway with APs.)

 

[Scott Christian]

A couple things are clear: 1) there are a lot of different definitions of "sandbox" in this thread, and 2) you are certain that yours is the only correct one.

The idea that the only real sandbox is one in which EVERYTHING is predefined is too silly to bother arguing with.

To be clear Reynard,

Where in my post that you quoted, does it state "EVERYTHING?"

If it was implied, I think you know in my first answer I stated it was not EVERYHTING. Here is the post you quoted:

"These details you fill in, do they follow the story the players suggested? (I get they might contain irony or some plot twists. That is not what I am asking.) Or do they discount any input the player had as they started?
I ask because once you "fill in the details" you are creating the story. It is not a sandbox. You can say, "But the players can choose to have their PCs turn around and leave." But the same is true for a "railroad" or "linear" or "hexcrawl."
If you say none of it is pregenerated, how is that sandbox? How does that represent sandboxes definition in any way shape or form? It doesn't. It is impromptu. You are making stuff up on the fly rather than having it prewritten (rehearsed)."

 

[Reynard]

To be clear Reynard,

Where in my post that you quoted, does it state "EVERYTHING?"

If it was implied, I think you know in my first answer I stated it was not EVERYHTING. Here is the post you quoted:

"These details you fill in, do they follow the story the players suggested? (I get they might contain irony or some plot twists. That is not what I am asking.) Or do they discount any input the player had as they started?
I ask because once you "fill in the details" you are creating the story. It is not a sandbox. You can say, "But the players can choose to have their PCs turn around and leave." But the same is true for a "railroad" or "linear" or "hexcrawl."
If you say none of it is pregenerated, how is that sandbox? How does that represent sandboxes definition in any way shape or form? It doesn't. It is impromptu. You are making stuff up on the fly rather than having it prewritten (rehearsed)."

I misunderstood that you didn't meither either in the "one or the toher" sense between prepped and impromptu. mea culpa.

More recently, though, i responded to a post that I think is more salient: sandboxes exist as a style of play completely independent of whether there is prep or not. Your argument that the existence or lack of prep somehow eliminates the playstyle makes no sense. They aren't dependent on one another, and only marginally related as you yourself have pointed out repeatedly in trying to explain the non-existence of a playstyle a huge number of people engage in.