D&D 5E Do You Prefer Sandbox or Party Level Areas In Your Game World?

So these are two approaches that campaigns can (and do) use. They have various names, but I'm using these names. I've used both approaches in the past.

Obviously there is more nuance than the definitions below, but these are two possible extreme ends of the poll when voting feel free to choose whichever end you tend towards, or embellish in the comments.

Sandbox -- each area on the world map has a set difficulty, and if you're a low level party and wander into a dangerous area, you're in trouble. The Shire is low level, Moria is high level. Those are 'absolute' values and aren't dependent on who's traveling through.

Party -- adventurers encounter challenges appropriate to their level wherever they are on the map. A low level party in Moria just meets a few goblins. A high level party meets a balrog!

Which do you prefer?

 

[Oofta]

Sandbox. The world is not aisle 7 in Walmart.

Yes, but if you only have $20 you're not going to go shopping at Walmart, not Saks.

 

[Emerikol]

I do party due to stupid players.
Ex. Elf Soup player. Low level players are on their way to Village of Hommlet (They don't know I using my last group changes to it.) Elf Soup decides he does not want to go and gets the party to strike out north. Goes on how he and the new players want sand box. Next encounter is the sisters from Hocus Pocus. Level 9+ monsters meet new party. I let them escape. Elf Soup sneaks back to witches house and night and offers up half the party as payment for power. Witches decide a elf in the soup is worth more than adventurers in the bush. Gripe session begins.
Ex 2. Foreshadowing done dinner. Have an adult green dragon (end of campaign monster) do a flyby which scare some of horses. Dragon starts to eat one the horses. Stupid fighter (level 2?)low crawls back into arrow range and fires at the dragon. Dragon gives him the hairy eye ball and returns to it meal. Fighter fires again. Dragon decides Fighter is back on the menu. No gripe session but some back channeling later on about encounters should be near party level.

No offense but I wouldn't play with that group. They are not taking the game serious enough to interest me.

I know it may be your only option but gee. Come on guys.

 

[kenada]

All those who voted sandbox, you probably say that this is more "realistic" -but do you give clear warnings?

I’m not sure realistic is the word I’d use. If I’m doing old-school dungeon design where the creatures have more hit dice the deeper you go into the dungeon, that’s not particularly realistic. However, that’s set independently of the PCs, so it feels in the spirit of the poll response for “sandbox”. That’s why I voted for “sandbox” (though I also view sandboxes as more than just how monsters are done).

I try to foreshadow what is in the dungeon or provide for ways to learn about it. A key element of this style of play is that players can use their skill to make decisions about how to act in the environment. If challenges are hidden, then they have no way to do that. That’s not fun just because their characters will presumably die but also because they were denied the opportunity to actually play.

And if you do, is it in your opinion realistic that you always get a warning of an imminent danger?

Having clues about their environment and what’s there is necessary for the players to meaningfully explore it. Unless you have something that is perfectly invisible and never leaves any detritus, then they should have a way to learn and intuit that something is there and/or dangerous. The clues can be subtle, but just surprise killing them is bad (for reasons indicated above).

If you do not give warnings, what is the point in having a party which does well in e.g. following adventure clues etc. perish in some high level encounter just because they took a wrong turn somewhere down the road?

It helps to run a system that gives the players tools for controlling engagement. I’m running OSE. Encounters start off with reaction rolls (unless prescribed otherwise in my key), so the opposition is not necessarily even hostile. Before the combat begins, the PCs have the opportunity to take other actions or even flee. If they think something is too dangerous, they should flee. The system has a procedure for that.

A big assumption I’m making, and I’d say it’s the key to making this style work, is that exploration and other interactions are a big part of the experience. The game doesn’t stop just because the PCs are out of combat. That’s not to say you can’t have exploration in other styles, but I feel like exploration for its own sake is at odds with the idea of a curated, story-driven experience. That’s not what I’m trying to do.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Any D&D that someone runs should never use "realistic" as their explanation for how they are running it. Because D&D mechanics guarantee that no realism will ever be in effect.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Yes, but if you only have $20 you're not going to go shopping at Walmart, not Saks.

Hah. But in both cases you know where everything is and how to access it with ease. My point being, of course, that Fantasy-Adventure is about the unknown, not the known, and thus should be unpredictable but, ultimately, not inaccessible in the long run. What Morrus has pointed to are two diametrically opposed play/DM ideologies, much like the Dungeon Crawl Adventure <> Mission Adventure comparison. Both work, but for my taste alone, one Rules and IMO will always be more representative of the unknown and unpredictability of Fantasy.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Any D&D that someone runs should never use "realistic" as their explanation for how they are running it. Because D&D mechanics guarantee that no realism will ever be in effect.

Respectfully, I must disagree. "Realistic" in terms of story arcs, motivation, plausibility of encounters in areas, etc. is certainly possible and IME very desired for the type of game I enjoy playing.

I will agree that if you are looking for realism in the mechanics, you will likely need to house-rule the crap out of D&D (which many have done to reach a level of realism they find desirable).

 

[happyhermit]

I much prefer to play in a "sandbox" for a variety of reasons. Maybe one of the easiest though, is that I find a series of "fair" fights more easily gets boring. Yes, the GM can use terrain, different goals, slightly above/below level "encounters", etc. but they do that in a sandbox as well. I much prefer when the players are able to decide to "punch above their weight" in order to achieve a specific goal (or just because they want the challenge). It emphasizes a different type of play, more strategic as well as tactical. Setting up escape routes, ambushes, traps, scouting ahead, making alliances with npc/monsters, are things I find really fun, especially when the party clearly chooses that style.

It can also be fun to go into areas where the PCs are very powerful, it opens up different narrative possibilities and even sometimes moral quandries. It also opens up the possibility for the monsters to apply all those tactics mentioned above without a TPK, not Tucker's kobolds, but similar.

So yeah, I have many reasons my preferred games are "sandbox" but this one kinda boils down to allows/encourages combat-as-war.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Whatever makes your group and you happy is working for you.

I would be unsatisfied both as a player and as a DM if everything was ad libbed all the time. I've been in those groups and I don't last long. Now you may be the greatest creative genius of all time and you may be able to trick me into thinking you've got it all worked out. Maybe such a person as you could pull it off. 99.999% of the DM's in the world could not.

I always find this an odd statement, because it seems strange to me to be hung up on when things are made up -- before the game sometime or during the game. I think this is really more a stand in for a feeling of "fairness" in the world -- if the GM is being held to what they made up beforehand, then the players can, through smart play, get a "leg up" on the GM. This looks a lot like classic keyed dungeons, where the GM is expected to stick to the key and 'neutrally' adjudicate action. Thing is, this isn't obviated by ad-libbing, although I'll agree that there's a lot of opportunity for Force here, especially in a game like D&D where the GM has all the authority levers over the fiction. So, I get the idea of preferring the GM have fewer opportunities to deploy Force, but this really doesn't have much to do with when the GM makes things up.

As for the OP, my answer is Lemon Curry. It just depends too much on what the game is at any given moment.

 

[Shadow Over Mystara]

I voted sandbox because that's where I lean, but it's mixed for me. As characters get more powerful, they draw more attention. Maybe enemies attack them preemptively, maybe enemies fortify their defenses more, whereas at low levels the party is more likely to be unknown or ignored. Even unintelligent monsters aren't inclined to waste resources on what they perceive as a non-threat.

 

[Emerikol]

I am kind of surprised sandbox is winning so dominatingly in the world of adventure paths etc...