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<blockquote data-quote="Ourph" data-source="post: 3546596" data-attributes="member: 20239">I'm not sure I would call mapping the coastline of Dino-Island vs. exploring the Dino-related adventures the DM has already set up &quot;abandoning the campaign&quot;.&nbsp; There are always going to be campaign-related activities the players embark on that the DM who has spent all of his time developing only adventures hasn't planned out.&nbsp; Whereas the DM who has spent the extra time developing the &quot;extraneous&quot; information about Dino-island generally has some resources at his disposal for when the PCs go off the reservation.Railroading/Shepherding is fine for some groups, but for others the distinction may be moot.&nbsp; I think we can both agree that if your preference is to run a true &quot;sandbox&quot; campaign, developing adventures to the exclusion of setting/world isn't the way to go unless you are VERY comfortable improvising setting/world-building during actual play.&nbsp; My personal experience is that most DMs are much more comfortable improvising encounters than they are improvising setting/world elements during the game (primarily because the rulebooks have always provided DMs with tons of tools for on-the-fly encounter development).&nbsp; As a result, it seems to me that spending the majority of pre-game prep time on the element of the game that's easiest to improvise during play is probably a mismanagement of the DM's resources.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ourph, post: 3546596, member: 20239"] I'm not sure I would call mapping the coastline of Dino-Island vs. exploring the Dino-related adventures the DM has already set up "abandoning the campaign". There are always going to be campaign-related activities the players embark on that the DM who has spent all of his time developing only adventures hasn't planned out. Whereas the DM who has spent the extra time developing the "extraneous" information about Dino-island generally has some resources at his disposal for when the PCs go off the reservation. Railroading/Shepherding is fine for some groups, but for others the distinction may be moot. I think we can both agree that if your preference is to run a true "sandbox" campaign, developing adventures to the exclusion of setting/world isn't the way to go unless you are VERY comfortable improvising setting/world-building during actual play. My personal experience is that most DMs are much more comfortable improvising encounters than they are improvising setting/world elements during the game (primarily because the rulebooks have always provided DMs with tons of tools for on-the-fly encounter development). As a result, it seems to me that spending the majority of pre-game prep time on the element of the game that's easiest to improvise during play is probably a mismanagement of the DM's resources. [/QUOTE]

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