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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5122663" data-attributes="member: 4937">Players find sandbox play rewarding because:1) It puts them in the driver's seat when it comes to plot, or at least gives that impression.  They get to determine to a large extent what the story is about and how it will be resolved.  They might only be choosing how to switch back and forth between various tracks in a railroad system, but even that can be a welcome degree of freedom.2) A successfully run sandbox requires the DM to know more about his game world (or at least be very good at faking it) than running an adventure path or dungeon.  This can be alot of fun.3) Sandboxes, because they almost by necessity evolve organically, tend to become vastly more complicated than even the most complicated published supermodules.  The big published supermodules like Castle Whiterock, Ptolus, Greyhawk Ruins, Undermountain, World's Largest Dungeon, Lost City of Barakis, City of Brass, etc. are really just attempts to emulate (with varying degrees of success) the typical results of a certain style of sandbox play.Players get frustrated by sandbox play because:1) If the DM isn't good at creating meta-plots and structured sidequests on the fly, then very quickly no event will seem connected to any other and the game degenerates into an endless sequence of tactical skirmishes.2) It requires the DM be either very good at world building, or very good at winging-it, or both, and these talents aren't necessarily possessed by everyone.3) Sandbox play which otherwise does bring the story and the detail can often slow down to the point that players never get to that awesome end game gauranteed to you on an adventure path.  You find yourself in a 'Robert Jordan' trap, where you are pursuing so many different threads of plot, and dealing with so much PC-NPC dialogue and melodrama, that you are never getting anywhere.  At which point, you start thinking, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have a straight forward 'old school' hack and slash adventure path."</blockquote>

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