D&D 5E Sandbox Play

[MrAtomek]

What I have done...

A few suggestions.

1). You really need to know your environment, because part of good sandbox is the exploring the world. Having some idea of what a medieval village, town, city, kingdom is like will help--as well as outdoor exploration.

2). It is important to have the world affect the players, and not just the players affect the world.

To that end:

Develop a great antagonist for the entire group to work against.

Have an idea for a subplot for each character, it adds depth and opportunities for complications and meaningful subquest.

Have one huge super plot. Something that you can hint at from time to time, and will likely become the focus of a session from now and then and after some time can become the big adventure.

Then pretty much let them wander and stuff will happen.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I'm running a 5E sandbox set in and around Phandalin and loosely based on bits in Lost Mine of Phandelver.

I've put up 18 blog posts so far with the material I loosely prepared and I otherwise ad lib. I have the hex map from the Starter Set with lots of info plus I have a hex map made using Hexographer of a 10 mile x 10 mile area around Phandalin where I have loose notes on various features.

What is really important is to maintain momentum. Always keep notes of what has happened and make sure you refresh your memory before each session.

And ALWAYS have at least three options for the PCs including in the very first session. I call it the Rule of Three - and, yes, it is completely unoriginal - but it remains the magic number in terms of offering meaningful choice with minimal preparation.

 

[Li Shenron]

Sandbox play from DM's perspective

How do you go about it?

Hand out a list of rumours so the players can follow up the ones that pique their interest?

Drop a map, tell them to pick a location and go with it?

Write up a few npcs with conflicting goals (that also conflict with pc goals)?

Something else?

I am not sure exactly what is the definition of "Sandbox" but the way I see it, is "a bounded location where you can do what you want without being told". (Note: the 'bounded' could really be as big as you want, as long as you can handle it)

So the main difference I would expect compared to an adventure path (which perhaps is its opposite) is that it is up to the PC to decide what are their quests, instead of the quests coming up towards them.

I would definitely start with a map, full of POI ("points of interest"), each of which might feature encounters, areas to explore, challenges, NPCs, traps, treasure, etc. I would certainly sketch the backstories about these POI. But I would let the PC decide where to go: at the beginning this might feel a bit random, basically they are choosing based on whatever inspires their curiosity... would you rather explore the "Swamp of blood" (monsters!!), the "Forbidden forest" (secrets!!) or the "Pyramid of diamonds" (treasure!!)? Then the story would unfold based on PC's decisions: there's a secret cult in the pyramid, should we try to stop them? Should we join them? Should we just sneak and take the treasure? Should we let them be and investigate how widespread their connections are?

In a sense, the adventures themselves are the same. In fact, I would happily drop the Temple of Elemental Evil or the Tomb of Horrors into any sandbox... the difference is that the ToEE story isn't falling on the player's head, but it's rather the players who stumble upon the ToEE business and trigger the adventure!

 

[ninjayeti]

If you haven't run a sandbox game before you might try a "semi-sandbox" - give the players a couple of story hooks (rumors, PC background hooks, etc.) and at the end of each session ask the players what they plan on pursuing next time. This gives you time to fully plan out an adventure in advance, while still letting the players drive the story. With each session drop an additional hook or two so the players always have options.

 

[Schmoe]

A few suggestions.

1). You really need to know your environment, because part of good sandbox is the exploring the world. Having some idea of what a medieval village, town, city, kingdom is like will help--as well as outdoor exploration.

2). It is important to have the world affect the players, and not just the players affect the world.

To that end:

Develop a great antagonist for the entire group to work against.

Have an idea for a subplot for each character, it adds depth and opportunities for complications and meaningful subquest.

Have one huge super plot. Something that you can hint at from time to time, and will likely become the focus of a session from now and then and after some time can become the big adventure.

Then pretty much let them wander and stuff will happen.

I think this gets to the heart of my question. Do you have plots and quests for players to become involved in, or do you just have the players create their own plots and quests? I think I would do very well in a campaign like the former, whereas in my experience with the latter, players just end up getting jobs for lack of anything more interesting to do. For me, personally, I'm not the kind of player who is going to come up with a grand scheme of my own that I want to play out, and to be honest, I've never had a player like that in one of my own games.

 

[Halivar]

Lots of players sitting about with no reals sense of what to do next, or why.

OK, that's more a description of bad sandbox play. Sandboxes are hard to run well - the GM has to be a good one.

Early in my DM career I thought sandbox play was the cat's meow. The problem was that I, as a DM, was not competent at extemporaneous storytelling yet. I also provided no potential plot hooks. I had a map. I had some things going on. But most of all, I had a table of players scratching there head and saying, "I dunnow... we go here I guess?"

I went back to square one, and ran the railroadiest D&D campaign ever. My players, my patient, patient players, endured it while I learned how to tell a story. Then my next campaign opened up a bit; fewer railroads but still big signs pointing where the next part of the "story" was. Recently I ran ToEE, and I let the game run completely off the rails, and great fun was to be had. My last game was a total sandbox, and the players loved it.

Advice to the OP: if you're new to DM'ing, don't start with sandbox play. Learn to DM first. I promise it will be more fun later on.

 

[Shiroiken]

I love DMing and Playing in Sandbox games, but it requires work on both sides of the DM screen to make it work.

The DM has to create an area that is pretty well fully developed. This includes NPCs, locations, and events that will take place (barring PC interference). The DM has to present these to the players in a way that will peak their interest, and the best way to do that is to create an antagonist that will play a role in most of the Events. If you know the players and PCs well, figure out a way to make sure the antagonist really annoys them early and often. This will keep the players engaged in trying to block the antagonist's plans (if only because they're irritated).

The Players also have some responsibility: they have to be proactive. They have to take the potential plot hooks and take action. They have to drive the session towards achieving a personal goal. They cannot, as too many players do, simply react to the DM's world. This is, IME, why sandbox games usually fail. I would say that less than 25% of all players are proactive enough for a true sandbox game, and if only 1 or 2 in a group are proactive, then the game revolves around them (causing others to become bitter).

A great example of a good sandbox adventure is Murder in Baldur's Gate. It has a fully detailed city for the players to explore, including many, many side plots, but it revolves around a series of major events. Those events take place even if the PCs choose to ignore them for other things. This creates an living city that the PCs are a part of, but not the center of, which is what a sandbox game is all about.

 

[Grimstaff]

Sandbox play from DM's perspective

How do you go about it?

Hand out a list of rumours so the players can follow up the ones that pique their interest?

Drop a map, tell them to pick a location and go with it?

Write up a few npcs with conflicting goals (that also conflict with pc goals)?

Something else?

Some sandbox essentials:
A good map of your region, preferably with numbered hexes.

Lots of encounters. Not just monsters, but NPCs, weird sites and landmarks, inclement weather, and other cool stuff.

Resource management. Keeping track of food and water, paying and feeding hirelings, fare and feed of mounts, etc.

Lots of short episodic adventures. Steal the doodad from the wizards tower, clear the orcs out of Tanglewood, hunt down the notorious giant crocodile of Misty Marsh, collect the bounty on the dreaded bandit lord etc.

Random tables are your friend. DMG of all editions have them, as do lots of blogs (like mine, below).

That's should get you started. The rest tends to grow organically as the characters begin to assert their own goals and motivations on the campaign.

I should add that's important to just roll with it. Don't confine yourself to preconceived plans. Let the players actions drive the narrative. Leave a body in the road with a trail of blood leading to a nearby ravine and see where things go from there.

 

[Rhenny]

When I run my sandboxy campaigns, I make huge outlines of possibilities. Then I drop lots of hooks. If there are 4 or 5 hooks thrown out, eventually the PCs snatch one. If they don't that's ok too. They may decide to do other things. As long as they are keeping the game moving, I react accordingly. If the campaign starts to drag, I introduce a complication or event that stimulates action. So...I also keep a list of possible events or complications.

As others have said, Phandelver works pretty well for this type of campaign. Also, in the playtest, the Blingdenstone adventure was one I could easily turn into a sandbox in the Underdark. Caves of Chaos worked well for this too. Instead of just combat in Caves of Chaos, I had the NPCs interact more with the PCs and eventually, the PCs made alliances and they took an interest in diplomacy and playing one tribe against another.

For sandbox, improvisation is the DMs best friend. Practice improv

 

[Rune]

First, a clarification, to refute the claims of others:

While hex-crawling is a type of sandbox play, not all sandboxes are hex-crawls.

Now, to answer the OP:

Short version: provide plentiful plot-hooks. If the players don't bite, make a note about the consequences of that inaction and bring it back later. Let the PCs write the story based on what they do and don't do.

Longer version: check out this thread, which is aimed at helping DMs prepare for and run what I call "streamlined sandbox" games on minimal prep. It provides the best answers I have to the OP's question.