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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8714666" data-attributes="member: 85555">That isn't how I would think of something being a sandbox. I am sure there are people who run sandboxes as a bunch of seeded adventure paths. Personally I think that is less 'not a sandbox' and more debatable territory among GMs who sandbox. The problem for me there is the adventure path structure itself feels very constrained, so it is like you are running into tracks once you find the seeds. Whereas I think of a sandbox as being much more organic (there are situations players can enter into, there are places they can go, problems they can instigate, but no pre-planned series of encounters or events or A to B to C to D to E). At the very least it would feel like a much more constrained sandbox to me. I think a lot of this is going to depend on where people developed their ideas about sandboxing. In the spaces where I was talking with other gamers about sandboxes and exchanging ideas, what you are describing was called something like a 'subway system', where there are really just a bunch of linear adventures waiting to be found, but they can be taken or left, approached in any order, etc. The general sense was that shared a bit with a sandbox, but was different. I tend to think of adventure paths as built around set pieces, whereas I see sandboxes as much more freeform (i.e. in an adventure path there may be a destination and there will be a series of planned encounters along the way, a rewarding build up, a final showdown at the destination, etc-----in a sandbox they players may choose to go somewhere, if anything happens along the way, it is probably just a random encounter or it is the product of something like an NPC they have become embroiled with also having an interest in what they are doing and trying to thwart them or something). For me a big difference is you are not worried about structuring things around events, around set pieces, around a build up. You are much more concerned about the actions and goals of NPCs, organizations, etc. And you don't particularly care about stuff like pacing the journey. Now if you took away the adventure paths but used those books by keeping all the locations, NPCs, etc and let that stuff all come into play organically, to me that would feel more like a proper sandbox</blockquote>

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