D&D 5E (2014) What separates a sandbox adventure from an AP?

[Halivar]

In the OP, I used "adventure path" because it's a useful term that is fairly well-understood, and AP is easier to write out a bunch of times than "adventure path, adventure series, or module series". And I think it's evident that everyone knew what I meant, so the choice of wording is fairly well validated.

 

[Blackbrrd]

That doesn't sound like a sandbox. It sounds closer to No Myth.

A strength of No Myth over sandboxing is that the setting is guaranteed to be responsive to the interests and concerns demonstrated by the players. In that way it is very player driven. But for some players, of course, this is a weakness rather than a strength, because they want a gameworld that is "real" and exists as an object of exploration independent of their interests and desires. For those players, traditional sandboxing is preferable.

(You seem to allude to this desire, by some players, for a "real" gameworld when you say "I don't think the players ever thought I was making it up at the spot.")

Ok, first off, cool link. My players would be fine with a no-myth type of game, and it sounds like a good way of running a game that feels far from railroady.

Secondly, I was trying to more or less procedurally generate the content as the PC's acted. Usually I find this really hard and it shines through that the material isn't prepared, but in this instance, I think I pulled it off really well. So well that to the players it felt like the characters were playing in a simulation, not a pre-made adventure. It felt really good, because I wasn't nudging the players in the direction the session went at all, this very important part of session of the campaign was completely player-driven. And the players could feel smart about their little assassination.

I think that when you run a game where the players know that clever ideas will make life easier for them creates a game full of clever ideas and awesome failed plans. A typical adventure path really cuts down on this because as a player, you know the DM is running a pre-made story which often only has one ending. Coming up with something clever isn't something you really bother with, because, hey, it's going to end the same way no matter what you do (as long as your character survies).

I think one very important part of a RPG is that failure should always be an option.

Anyway, and a bit more on-topic: I do think that the sandbox-railroad is two extremes you seldom run into. Most of the time you are somewhere in between. Personally, I am much more happy when I am far from a railroad, but at the same time, I do like story.

My way of running a game is usually for me to have an idea for a game, get the players on board with that idea, come up with some suitable characters/backstories/motivations, line up some events/npc's with motivations etc and go from there. The first few sessions are usually a bit railroady, but I try not to prepare too far in advance, so I can take into how the game world would react to the players actions.

In one session, I had a secret staging camp for an invasion planned with a map, who were in it and their general motivations and connections to other NPCs. I didn't plan any encounters or anything like that. To me, that's the job of the PCs - to make as easy encounters they can. In this case it went really well, one part of the party did some sneaking/assassinations, while the other part just walked up to the NPCs and just bluffing their way out, using their acquired, but unconfirmed knowledge of the secret NPC connections. The fun part of it was the way the PCs formulated themselves. They got confirmation of the connection, and made the bluff a whole lot easier. Clever!

Anyway, the above example is one way to prepare in a more sandboxy, not-railroady way. Instead of preparing encounters, prepare sites/situations where you don't take into account what you think the players will do (but possibly what the NPCs know about the PCs). Then let the PCs interact with the site/situation and generate your encounters from that. In the example above, I got a stealth-encounter, a skirmish and a social encounter out of it.

 

[pemerton]

I think that when you run a game where the players know that clever ideas will make life easier for them creates a game full of clever ideas and awesome failed plans. A typical adventure path really cuts down on this because as a player, you know the DM is running a pre-made story which often only has one ending. Coming up with something clever isn't something you really bother with, because, hey, it's going to end the same way no matter what you do (as long as your character survies).

I agree about clever ideas.

A related thing: if you run a game where the players know that interesting characters and interesting choices will be rewarded (in the sense of generating spotlight time, having NPCs respond to those choices and care about the character, etc) then I think you get the players playing more interesting PCs in more interesting ways.

I've never really run an adventure path, but I have had experience with railroad-y GMs. As well as shutting down interesting ideas (which they do), I find they also shut down interesting characters - or, at least, they make interesting goals and motivations unimportant to play (and "interesting character" therefore gets reduced to "character with quirky dress-sense and mannerisms", which personally I often find irritating rather than interesting).

Instead of preparing encounters, prepare sites/situations where you don't take into account what you think the players will do (but possibly what the NPCs know about the PCs). Then let the PCs interact with the site/situation and generate your encounters from that. In the example above, I got a stealth-encounter, a skirmish and a social encounter out of it.

My variation on this - instead of taking account of what the NPCs know about the PCs, make it the case that the NPCs have some sort of actual or implicit relationship to the PCs (eg they care about something the PCs also care about). Then the players have a reason to have their PCs do something about the situation. What they do doesn't really matter - what I want to avoid is the players not being motivated enough to have their PCs do anything at all.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I've never really run an adventure path, but I have had experience with railroad-y GMs. As well as shutting down interesting ideas (which they do), I find they also shut down interesting characters - or, at least, they make interesting goals and motivations unimportant to play (and "interesting character" therefore gets reduced to "character with quirky dress-sense and mannerisms", which personally I often find irritating rather than interesting).

This is so true, and I can't really fault the DM when he is running a minimal-prep time AP campaign. I am playing in such a campaign now, and the character is mostly just weird behaviour due to him being brought back from the brink of death by deamons thrice due to meddling from our Warlock. There is just no real room in the AP for me to expand on the characters goals/motivations. Instead, I am left with developing his gradually detoriating mental state due to the amount of deamons, devils and gods he comes in contact with.

 

[S'mon]

This is so true, and I can't really fault the DM when he is running a minimal-prep time AP campaign.

I always find I spend far more time on my Pathfinder AP Crimson Throne campaign trying to understand Paizo's verbose writing & scattered floorplans than I do on my 4e D&D campaign where I create most of the stuff myself. Do people really find that APs save time?

 

[pemerton]

I am playing in such a campaign now, and the character is mostly just weird behaviour due to him being brought back from the brink of death by deamons thrice due to meddling from our Warlock. There is just no real room in the AP for me to expand on the characters goals/motivations. Instead, I am left with developing his gradually detoriating mental state due to the amount of deamons, devils and gods he comes in contact with.

Just speaking about my own experiences and preferences, I enjoy this sort of thing in Cthulhu games with a good GM - playing out the deteriorating sanity in a world outside my control.

I don't enjoy it as much in D&D (or similar RPGs which are ostensibly oriented towards PCs as protagonists rather than victims).

 

[pemerton]

Do people really find that APs save time?

I can't speak to APs.

As I might have mentioned upthread, for me modules provide geography, location maps and NPCs.

Good ones also provide situations that are more interesting than (at least some of) what I come up with myself.

Some of this is time-saving (eg the maps). Some is just about getting the benefit of someone else's creativity (interesting NPCs, compelling situations).

What is the issue with the Paizo APs? Is there anything distinctive about them that makes it hard to extract the information you are looking for as a GM? The most recent "module" that I used in my 4e game was Setherezad (sp?), the Githzerai stronghold from the Plane Below book. Because I was combining it with a couple of other bits-and-pieces from the same book, I had to do some note-taking and collating, so it wasn't minimal prep but I don't think it actively cost time compared to thinking up and writing up a comparable situation myself.

 

[Halivar]

Do people really find that APs save time?

Not for me; when I run published material I have to read it with a fine-toothed comb and keep it on hand to refer to during play. If it's my own stuff from my own head, then most of it's cached in RAM and my notes are just paged memory on disk, do be swapped in if referenced.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I always find I spend far more time on my Pathfinder AP Crimson Throne campaign trying to understand Paizo's verbose writing & scattered floorplans than I do on my 4e D&D campaign where I create most of the stuff myself. Do people really find that APs save time?

This is the reason I switched from AP to standalone adventures. In an adventure, I am just assuming that I can get a general overview of the situation and create my own adventure from it. With an AP, I can't really do that, because then it will get really hard to run the next adventure in the series.

The reason I use premade adventures is that I have problems actually comming up with enough stuff to run a long campaign, I am just not creative enough. I use the adventures to get inspiration and sometimes run them more or less as written, or at least parts of them. My players were quite keen on taking on Nazim Redthorn from Reavers of Harkenworld without me nudging them in that direction. It's actually a 4e adventure I would recommend.

One thing I do is when I am going to use a location like the keep from Reavers of Harkenworld, I compile the information about who's where, and instead of running the encounters as written, I use common sense to create encounters as the PCs explore/bluff/sneak/fight their way through the castle. If somebody is dead, I cross them off from the list. This makes it a whole lot easier to react to the players clever ideas instead of trying to get the adventures premade descriptions like: "when the players enter this room, xyz attacks" to make sense, when xyz is dead, or at a completely different location or whatever.

It would have been nice if the adventures were written in the condenced format I actually use to run the adventures, with information about motivations, mannerisms and so on in a separate description. Basically, for each location, something like this:
a) a map with boxes showing with callouts with the number of NPCs in each room
b) a short description of the location
c) a text describing the general behaviour of the NPCs at the location
d) a text describing the important NPCs and their motivations and likely reactions.

That would be a lot more useful than the current:
a) a map with numbers on it
b) a short description of the location
c) a description room by room with the description of the NPCs in that room

 

[Reynard]

What is the issue with the Paizo APs? Is there anything distinctive about them that makes it hard to extract the information you are looking for as a GM?

I asked this question on Paizo's boards once and the answer I got from James Jacobs was that APs sell a lot to folks who only read them so they are built to be read like prose not necessarily used as is at the table. That is fine and all, I get that is there market and it works for them, but it just means PF APs are too labor intensive for me to make use of.