DMs don't really need to do much more preparation to sandbox than to railroad.
In terms of combat encounters, you just need to have a things up your sleeve that work regardless of what the players do. E.g. low-level players might encounter bandits on the road regardless of whether the road they're taking is the one north to save the village, the one south to go warn the king, or the one east to follow rumors of treasure. A cave map can work regardless of whether the cave is the one with the orcs or the one with the skeletons.
That's not sandboxing. If player choices don't affect what happens, that's railroading.
The most important aspect is everyone needs to have fun. How you get there is irrelavent.
I agree, but the problem is that alot of DMs (and some players), especially newer ones, think they have to make a sandbox for it to be fun. I want them to see another way. I'm not trying to preach to the choir lol.
I learned how to play DnD by watching Critical Role, I have never seen DND before my first episode. So Mathew Mercer taught me how to DM. I want to reach out to the DMs of my generation so they have more than one example, even if Matt is a great example to begin with.
I see. I apologize that I oversimplified it. I have felt that burn to prepare and over prepare and then prepare again just in case players choose to just go off the path. It gave me a headache. It has taken me awhile to learn to just go with the flow and let it play out. That isn't something you get comfortable with quickly.
I don't like any stigma experienced DM's and players can unnecessarily put on someone just because they feel its too easy and that these methods are "lazy" DMing. Railroading, milestone leveling, heck even running published adventurers have been frowned upon by others, simply because of the "In my day, we had to walk to school in 2 feet of snow" grumpy old man attitude that some long time players seem to push. That thought process is toxic to anyone looking to get into this hobby and can push them out the door, rather then welcoming them in.
These tools are there to make it easier and more fun for someone to run a campaign and dissuading anyone from using them is a sure way to make someone not want to run a game again.
A true sandbox experience requires immensive work and willpower from the DM.
Work, because you need the whole area mapped in detail in case they decide to go to a specific place.
Willpower, because you need to be able to let go of massive amount of work they decide to ignore.
I myself am a fan of semi-sandbox-semi-railroad.
Imagine a scenario where you prepared an abandoned castle you want your players to visit. And you decided to place it north from where they are.
True sandbox approach would require me to set that in stone regardless of what they are doing. They go north? Super, we are golden. They go anywhere else? Too bad, work got wasted. Maybe they will return later but that is a big maybe.
Situation can be a bit fluent if the players didn't learn about the castle beforehand. If they didn't scry or didn't ask anyone in town who would give them the information or didn't buy a map of local area where the castle is marked, then I can move the castle freely. It's a trade-off. All depends on your players. Do you feel that if you tell them about an abandoned castle, you will pick up their curiosity and they will willingly go there? Or maybe they will be like "nope, not gonna go there".
I will move ambushes and encounters when necessary and possible but I will let the players avoid them if they take initiative and learn about it beforehand.
In the castle example, if the players learn that there is something up north and decide to go south then obviously I am not going to move it now that they got the information beforehand. If they learn that a particular band of bandits terrorize roads south from the place they are staying, I am not going to move the bandits north "because they felt like it".
It all requires fine tuning and gentle touch. One needs to be careful with moving castles and dungeons because then it might break verisimilitude that somehow wherever players are going there are some fantastic events or structures waiting for them. It's good to employ some tricks from time to time to make them remember that the world they are traversing lives at it's own pace. Maybe the next village they will visit will be already burned? With the goblins already gone? Make them understand that if they went there sooner, they might have be there for the attack and could've helped? Or they can visit the dungeon but the monsters inside are already dead and the loot is gone?
Making them see that it's possible to just miss some events because of tardiness or their choices will make them believe that they truly live in a world where everything has a natural order of consequences.
DMs don't really need to do much more preparation to sandbox than to railroad.
In terms of combat encounters, you just need to have a things up your sleeve that work regardless of what the players do. E.g. low-level players might encounter bandits on the road regardless of whether the road they're taking is the one north to save the village, the one south to go warn the king, or the one east to follow rumors of treasure. A cave map can work regardless of whether the cave is the one with the orcs or the one with the skeletons.
That's not sandboxing. If player choices don't affect what happens, that's railroading.
Definitely. When people rant against railroading, this is what they are talking about. Where what the players choose to do doesn't matter.
Personally, I run my game like this - I create a regional map and decide on an opening scene plus a general plot progression based on a guess of what the players will choose to do. Then I also look at various places on my map and brainstorm ideas about what's there - not even writing those things down. The players usually go along with the plot, but if they choose to go some other direction, I can quickly throw together an encounter based on my brainstorming. Then for next session, I'll repeat the process, but also throw away ideas for things that didn't happen, or now can't. Playing for 5 years monthly, the progressed plot and areas of the world explored were radically different from what I initially came up with. The players basically drove the plot and I would create and re-create it session to session. Took me very little work between sessions, as very little was written down other than what was needed to start the next session. One import thing that helps as well is that I'd write a detailed session report and send it to all the players the very next day. That would solidify in my mind what has now become true in the world, and give me ideas for the next session.
I will say that I don't consider myself a sandbox DM, though I do run in a moderately open manner. My basic style of running is:
I have one or more sets of adversaries. They are doing stuff.
These adversaries usually have distinct groups that they split up into, which I can use as an encounter when needed.
I have some plot hook events that will occur in a manner that is likely to pull the PCs in.
The rest of the area is vaguely defined, unless already defined by a prior adventure; PCs who go off the map will find stuff that probably isn't very interesting.
PCs who go out investigating will find out about whatever stuff the opposition is doing, and may attempt to interfere. If they do, I have an encounter with whatever group they are interfering with, though the location of the encounter will vary depending on PC actions.
If the PCs don't interfere, the adversaries typically accomplish their goals.
Parts of this thread can make you believe a game is either completely railroading or completely sandbox. I'm guessing most of our games consists of a little of both, and mostly things in between.
I don't agree that having for instance having decided that the players will be ambushed by bandits always is railroading (or if it is, it doesn't need to be bad railroading).
That's an encounter I could use as a hook for an adventure: On the road from A to B, the players will be ambushed by some bandits. I could throw that in on more or less any road, and expect the players get quite easily through the encounter. However I would leave it up to the players if they want to try to rid the forrest of the greater bandit problem. If they would try to find their camp and hunt them down.
My point is, when creating an adventure, we need hooks for the players. I usually create quite a few so I have some to choose from that doesn't feel forced, but the truth is, I'll need to have those hooks to get the players into the adventure.
I think D&D is a game that allows for a little more railroading than other games. The basic premise of the game is the old traditional group of adventurers with a common goal. That means that the "contract" between DM and players kind of states that when I throw them a bone, they should take it. Of course sometimes they don't, sometimes I miscalculate and the players say: "Hey, why should we do that?" Then it's my job to get in sync with. the players again.
I also don't agree that having a more sandbox kind of game includes more work than a more railroading one. To me it doesn't. Planning a railroaded path, would include a lot of work trying to make sure the players doesn't feel completely ribbed of free will. Just "throwing" out some bait and see what the PC's do and then improvise based on some general ideas about the world and the surroundings, is not more difficult if you are used to it.
But one important point here, might be that we don't play with miniatures or pre made battle maps. I usually only have some general idea and describe the situations. If a combat occurs, and it is necessary, I will sketch up the battle field on a piece of paper.
I also don't agree that having a more sandbox kind of game includes more work than a more railroading one.
The issue with non-railroading (whether or not it's a sandbox, it also applies to forking story-based progression) is that you either don't detail things until the PCs actually reach them (which is low prep but can be slow and high effort during a session), or you wind up detailing things that the PCs wind up ignoring or avoiding.
I also don't agree that having a more sandbox kind of game includes more work than a more railroading one.
The issue with non-railroading (whether or not it's a sandbox, it also applies to forking story-based progression) is that you either don't detail things until the PCs actually reach them (which is low prep but can be slow and high effort during a session), or you wind up detailing things that the PCs wind up ignoring or avoiding.
Yes, I agree if you try to prep for "everything" it will be a very daunting task. I usually go for your first solution - don't detail things to much until the PC's meet them. If you're used to doing it that way, it's not very slow or high effort. There are certainly some "tricks" you can use. For one, keeping a list of names is also a good idea. It's also essential to spend some time after the session to go through your notes and flesh out details on new things that came up. You should also have a quite good overview over monsters, and it's a good idea to have at least some idea which one is likely to be in the area the players will be (and have read through them). For NPC's I usually just use a template, and I'll flesh him/her out later if I think the person will reappear.
And it sometimes requires that you sometimes adjust your "encounters" as they happens - if they are to easy, have some more enemies appear late etc. I know some people really don't like this way of playing, but it works for us.
Yeah, I keep coming back to that - the most important thing is to give the players freedom to do what they want and achieve their goals, choices of what goals to pick or how to achieve them.
Some things don't matter to this. If the players choose between going north to fight orcs or going south to warn the king, they won't feel railroaded if they fight bandits along the way in either direction, because they're fighting bandits along the way to different goals. Or if the final cave map in which they fight orcs is one that could also have been used to fight skeletons if they had chosen differently. Who cares? The DM can prepare fewer things and reuse them for different plotlines.
On the other hand, if they players go south to warn a king, and the only effect is the king tells them "thanks, now go back north and fight the orcs"... ...that feels really railroady! The players already had a choice, they chose otherwise, and the DM is basically telling them "ok, you chose wrong, go back and do the other path." Or just as bad, if the players are never given a choice - they encounter one quest-giver who tells them what to do, and they feel like they have no option but to follow because there's no other reasonable adventuring plotlines to do.
My guess is that the key to efficient DMing is to learn what you need to prepare for each specific location, what you can prepare generically and shift to any reasonable location, and what you can improvise.
I must be the railroading-est DM who ever lived. When I create a campaign, I let the players know that they are starting out as agents of the local law enforcement or caravan guards or that they are going to be adventurers dropping into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Every single time. I've been DMing for many years, and I've never had someone complain that they were being railroaded into a story. Most seem to appreciate the structure because they can get creative with characters to fit the theme or adventure. Most every DM I've ever played with has done the same. How else do you create the story?
When I was young I go talked into running an evil campaign and it turned into the wildest murder-hobo-fest I've ever heard of. It was very free form and characters got to do whatever they wanted but ultimately they were unhappy with it because they were hounded to death by local law enforcement, adventurers and bounty hunters, until they realized that actions have consequences and the consequences ended up as dead or chained to an oar on the magistrates pleasure galley.
There always seems to be a big debate over "Sandbox vs Railroad".
There is a middle ground. I call it the Flowchart.
Don't try to write a narrative campaign from the first encounter to the final encounter. That simply won't work. There is no possible way you can predict all the things your players will want to do. If your year's worth of preparation is predicated on the players going east, and they decide to go west, what then? Do you throw away all that work, or do you suddenly start improvising off your cuff? No.
Don't write a narrative campaign. Sure, have an overarching theme. Build a final boss. And then just start writing scenes. A scene is an encounter that could take one game session or maybe a few. Each scene needs to have the NPCs listed, the action that starts the scene, and the requirements to resolve the scene. You may also list the type of environment where the scene takes place. Keep in mind: "environment" here does NOT mean "location". It's means something like "forest", not "this particular forest right here". Also - give each scene a title and a level range. Is this a scene for a party level 1 - 3, or a party level 10 - 14? Finally, arrange your scenes in level order from 1 to 20. Make sure that you have enough scenes so that there is enough overlap in the levels that there are at least two scenes covering each level.
Now that you have your scenes, imagine a flowchart in your mind. Start the party at some location and give them some options. Should they take the job protecting a caravan or the job investigating the stolen cows? This let's them feel like they control the story. Whatever they choose, run that scene. Each scene should be able to link to another scene of a higher level. Whichever way the players go, simply plug a scene into the flowchart and run it. If your players head into the mountains, choose a scene that takes place in that terrain. If they head into the Underdark, well, maybe you didn't write an Underdark scene. But maybe you wrote a scene where they have to go to a high elf city in a forest and negotiate for information. Change forest to caverns, change the trees to giant mushrooms, change high elves to Drow, and run that scene.
In your downtime between each play session, re-familiarize yourself with the scenes around that party level and have a few on hand ready to run, depending on which way the party jumps. Also - during that time, think of how their current scene will link to the next one. In the end, it's all just a flowchart, and you're just plugging interchangeable scenes into the flowchart each step along the way. And while you're writing each scene, be sure to make a note in each one reminding yourself how that particular scene is connected to your overarching story arc.
Does that make sense? It makes sense in my head, I just hope it's making sense outside my head.
For example, I've been worldbuilding for a whiles now and writing scenes for a big campaign I'm hoping to run. Here's a list of the scenes I have prepared so far:
The Fairgrounds. 1
The fortune teller. 1
A farmer's woes. 1
Convoy guard. 1-2
Barn vortex. 1-3
Thieves 1-3
First boss 3-4
The breakroom 3-5
Mist maidens 3-5
Jorgondl 3-6
The temple boss 5-8
The devil's bargain 5-9
The city that burns 6-10
Fey jungle island 7-12
Three legionnaires 7-12
The stolen tin whistle 8-12
A Borean bargain 8-14
Beholder! 10-15
Dragon vs dragon 11-15
Eruption! 14-16
Raise an army 15-18
The army assemble 16-19
The Final Battle 18-20
They find a key - ?
Ollie vs the Apothecary - ?
Sundown - ?
The string god - ?
The devil's playground - ?
The gnome astronomer - ?
Iridium towers - ?
Often-Dead Fred - ?
The end goal is to make the players think that you have a million things prepared because no matter what they do or where they go you've got something ready. But the trick is that you really only have maybe two or three things ready at any given moment and you just plug one of those scenes into whatever location the players end up at in each session. As long as you remember how each scene fits into the story arc, it should all feel like a cohesive narrative story when it's run, because the players simply won't know about the roads they didn't follow.
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Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
I must be the railroading-est DM who ever lived. When I create a campaign, I let the players know that they are starting out as agents of the local law enforcement or caravan guards or that they are going to be adventurers dropping into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
Railroading is usually only evaluated for events after the start of play.
But the trick is that you really only have maybe two or three things ready at any given moment and you just plug one of those scenes into whatever location the players end up at in each session
That... actually sounds almost like a railroad.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying here, but... if you are going to have 3 scenes and plug one of them into wherever the characters go -- no matter where they go -- then that is a textbook railroad. It is the larger scale equivalent of making a dungeon map with a bunch of different halls and rooms, and having a key that says "whatever room they enter first is this," and "whatever room they enter second is that." It provides the illusion of choice, but not actual choice.
But maybe I have misinterpreted what you have said.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
But the trick is that you really only have maybe two or three things ready at any given moment and you just plug one of those scenes into whatever location the players end up at in each session
That... actually sounds almost like a railroad.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying here, but... if you are going to have 3 scenes and plug one of them into wherever the characters go -- no matter where they go -- then that is a textbook railroad. It is the larger scale equivalent of making a dungeon map with a bunch of different halls and rooms, and having a key that says "whatever room they enter first is this," and "whatever room they enter second is that." It provides the illusion of choice, but not actual choice.
But maybe I have misinterpreted what you have said.
True, but as any experience salesperson can tell you: “Reality isn’t reality, perception is reality.” While that may in fact be a railroad, as long as the illusion of choice is maintained, the players won’t know. Heck, even Mr. Colville has mentioned “moving the room” at least once.
I’m not personally fond of this approach, but ultimately, as long as everyone is having fun, is there any harm?
But the trick is that you really only have maybe two or three things ready at any given moment and you just plug one of those scenes into whatever location the players end up at in each session
That... actually sounds almost like a railroad.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying here, but... if you are going to have 3 scenes and plug one of them into wherever the characters go -- no matter where they go -- then that is a textbook railroad. It is the larger scale equivalent of making a dungeon map with a bunch of different halls and rooms, and having a key that says "whatever room they enter first is this," and "whatever room they enter second is that." It provides the illusion of choice, but not actual choice.
But maybe I have misinterpreted what you have said.
You are not wrong - it sounds like a railroad because it is when you look at the mechanism at play but since they players don't know that and don't have a quick-load button then they don't mind (how could they since they have no way of verifying what is being done to them unless you actually admit it), as opposed to a hard railroad where they don't want to go somewhere but are forced there anyway by enemies shooting "Arrows of Player Killing" from "Bows of Plot Advancement".
An experienced player might sniff that something like this is happening when whenever they go there ALWAYS seems to be something exciting happening. When they are never late to save a village and always on time to get a quest from a half dead man left on the road they might start getting the feeling that everything revolves around their whereabouts.
"An experienced player might sniff that something like this is happening when whenever they go there ALWAYS seems to be something exciting happening. When they are never late to save a village and always on time to get a quest from a half dead man left on the road they might start getting the feeling that everything revolves around their whereabouts."
Maybe I didn't explain properly. The player's choices are not without consequences. Events will continue to unfold throughout the game world regardless of where the players go. If they have a choice to go to Town A or Town B, and they go to Town A, then something horrible still might happen in Town B. They can't be everywhere, they can't save everyone, and they won't. An important part of the game is watching players learn that their decisions and their actions have consequences in the game world. That is immersion.
Otherwise, literally anything whatsoever that any DM ever writes or plans for any adventure anywhere ever could be considered "railroading". If you say they're starting in a town, they could say "That's railroading! We wanted to start in a big city!" If you say they search a forest and begin finding undead animals, they could say, "That's railroading! You know we hate fighting undead!" I mean, at some point you have to accept that a DM has to do some preparation and have something ready for the players. Is all of that to be considered "railroading"? It seems that the only option is that every DM make literally no plans whatsoever and completely improvise literally every session based on the player's actions. That sounds a bit unreasonable to me. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting.
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Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
True, but as any experience salesperson can tell you: “Reality isn’t reality, perception is reality.” While that may in fact be a railroad, as long as the illusion of choice is maintained, the players won’t know. Heck, even Mr. Colville has mentioned “moving the room” at least once.
The problem with that model is that it only works in the zero-information case. If you don't give the players enough information to make an informed decision about what they want to do next, it might as well be a railroad, and if you do give them enough information, they should avoid any encounters inappropriate to the informed decision they made.
True, but as any experience salesperson can tell you: “Reality isn’t reality, perception is reality.” While that may in fact be a railroad, as long as the illusion of choice is maintained, the players won’t know. Heck, even Mr. Colville has mentioned “moving the room” at least once.
The problem with that model is that it only works in the zero-information case. If you don't give the players enough information to make an informed decision about what they want to do next, it might as well be a railroad, and if you do give them enough information, they should avoid any encounters inappropriate to the informed decision they made.
As I said, I do not use that model. I take on the extra work of keeping as much living information about the world as I possibly can crammed into my head specifically so that I can make the players’ sandbox as real and dynamic as possible specifically to avoid using that model. In fact, by my reckoning, there are more problems with that model than the one you listed.
However, if the table is having fun, and if the DM can maintain the illusion, then I suppose that none of those problems are problems for them. Truth be told, some tables don’t care about a sandbox experience nearly as much as others. Some just want to drink beer and roll dice. Some want a more plot-centric storyline, which by default requires a certain degree of railroading to maintain. Different strokes for different folks.
That's not sandboxing. If player choices don't affect what happens, that's railroading.
I see. I apologize that I oversimplified it. I have felt that burn to prepare and over prepare and then prepare again just in case players choose to just go off the path. It gave me a headache. It has taken me awhile to learn to just go with the flow and let it play out. That isn't something you get comfortable with quickly.
I don't like any stigma experienced DM's and players can unnecessarily put on someone just because they feel its too easy and that these methods are "lazy" DMing. Railroading, milestone leveling, heck even running published adventurers have been frowned upon by others, simply because of the "In my day, we had to walk to school in 2 feet of snow" grumpy old man attitude that some long time players seem to push. That thought process is toxic to anyone looking to get into this hobby and can push them out the door, rather then welcoming them in.
These tools are there to make it easier and more fun for someone to run a campaign and dissuading anyone from using them is a sure way to make someone not want to run a game again.
"Shadow Hide You..."
A true sandbox experience requires immensive work and willpower from the DM.
Work, because you need the whole area mapped in detail in case they decide to go to a specific place.
Willpower, because you need to be able to let go of massive amount of work they decide to ignore.
I myself am a fan of semi-sandbox-semi-railroad.
Imagine a scenario where you prepared an abandoned castle you want your players to visit. And you decided to place it north from where they are.
True sandbox approach would require me to set that in stone regardless of what they are doing. They go north? Super, we are golden. They go anywhere else? Too bad, work got wasted. Maybe they will return later but that is a big maybe.
Situation can be a bit fluent if the players didn't learn about the castle beforehand. If they didn't scry or didn't ask anyone in town who would give them the information or didn't buy a map of local area where the castle is marked, then I can move the castle freely. It's a trade-off. All depends on your players. Do you feel that if you tell them about an abandoned castle, you will pick up their curiosity and they will willingly go there? Or maybe they will be like "nope, not gonna go there".
I will move ambushes and encounters when necessary and possible but I will let the players avoid them if they take initiative and learn about it beforehand.
In the castle example, if the players learn that there is something up north and decide to go south then obviously I am not going to move it now that they got the information beforehand. If they learn that a particular band of bandits terrorize roads south from the place they are staying, I am not going to move the bandits north "because they felt like it".
It all requires fine tuning and gentle touch. One needs to be careful with moving castles and dungeons because then it might break verisimilitude that somehow wherever players are going there are some fantastic events or structures waiting for them. It's good to employ some tricks from time to time to make them remember that the world they are traversing lives at it's own pace. Maybe the next village they will visit will be already burned? With the goblins already gone? Make them understand that if they went there sooner, they might have be there for the attack and could've helped? Or they can visit the dungeon but the monsters inside are already dead and the loot is gone?
Making them see that it's possible to just miss some events because of tardiness or their choices will make them believe that they truly live in a world where everything has a natural order of consequences.
Definitely. When people rant against railroading, this is what they are talking about. Where what the players choose to do doesn't matter.
Personally, I run my game like this - I create a regional map and decide on an opening scene plus a general plot progression based on a guess of what the players will choose to do. Then I also look at various places on my map and brainstorm ideas about what's there - not even writing those things down. The players usually go along with the plot, but if they choose to go some other direction, I can quickly throw together an encounter based on my brainstorming. Then for next session, I'll repeat the process, but also throw away ideas for things that didn't happen, or now can't. Playing for 5 years monthly, the progressed plot and areas of the world explored were radically different from what I initially came up with. The players basically drove the plot and I would create and re-create it session to session. Took me very little work between sessions, as very little was written down other than what was needed to start the next session. One import thing that helps as well is that I'd write a detailed session report and send it to all the players the very next day. That would solidify in my mind what has now become true in the world, and give me ideas for the next session.
I will say that I don't consider myself a sandbox DM, though I do run in a moderately open manner. My basic style of running is:
Parts of this thread can make you believe a game is either completely railroading or completely sandbox. I'm guessing most of our games consists of a little of both, and mostly things in between.
I don't agree that having for instance having decided that the players will be ambushed by bandits always is railroading (or if it is, it doesn't need to be bad railroading).
That's an encounter I could use as a hook for an adventure: On the road from A to B, the players will be ambushed by some bandits. I could throw that in on more or less any road, and expect the players get quite easily through the encounter. However I would leave it up to the players if they want to try to rid the forrest of the greater bandit problem. If they would try to find their camp and hunt them down.
My point is, when creating an adventure, we need hooks for the players. I usually create quite a few so I have some to choose from that doesn't feel forced, but the truth is, I'll need to have those hooks to get the players into the adventure.
I think D&D is a game that allows for a little more railroading than other games. The basic premise of the game is the old traditional group of adventurers with a common goal. That means that the "contract" between DM and players kind of states that when I throw them a bone, they should take it. Of course sometimes they don't, sometimes I miscalculate and the players say: "Hey, why should we do that?" Then it's my job to get in sync with. the players again.
I also don't agree that having a more sandbox kind of game includes more work than a more railroading one. To me it doesn't. Planning a railroaded path, would include a lot of work trying to make sure the players doesn't feel completely ribbed of free will. Just "throwing" out some bait and see what the PC's do and then improvise based on some general ideas about the world and the surroundings, is not more difficult if you are used to it.
But one important point here, might be that we don't play with miniatures or pre made battle maps. I usually only have some general idea and describe the situations. If a combat occurs, and it is necessary, I will sketch up the battle field on a piece of paper.
Ludo ergo sum!
The issue with non-railroading (whether or not it's a sandbox, it also applies to forking story-based progression) is that you either don't detail things until the PCs actually reach them (which is low prep but can be slow and high effort during a session), or you wind up detailing things that the PCs wind up ignoring or avoiding.
Yes, I agree if you try to prep for "everything" it will be a very daunting task. I usually go for your first solution - don't detail things to much until the PC's meet them. If you're used to doing it that way, it's not very slow or high effort. There are certainly some "tricks" you can use. For one, keeping a list of names is also a good idea. It's also essential to spend some time after the session to go through your notes and flesh out details on new things that came up. You should also have a quite good overview over monsters, and it's a good idea to have at least some idea which one is likely to be in the area the players will be (and have read through them). For NPC's I usually just use a template, and I'll flesh him/her out later if I think the person will reappear.
And it sometimes requires that you sometimes adjust your "encounters" as they happens - if they are to easy, have some more enemies appear late etc. I know some people really don't like this way of playing, but it works for us.
Ludo ergo sum!
Yeah, I keep coming back to that - the most important thing is to give the players freedom to do what they want and achieve their goals, choices of what goals to pick or how to achieve them.
Some things don't matter to this. If the players choose between going north to fight orcs or going south to warn the king, they won't feel railroaded if they fight bandits along the way in either direction, because they're fighting bandits along the way to different goals. Or if the final cave map in which they fight orcs is one that could also have been used to fight skeletons if they had chosen differently. Who cares? The DM can prepare fewer things and reuse them for different plotlines.
On the other hand, if they players go south to warn a king, and the only effect is the king tells them "thanks, now go back north and fight the orcs"... ...that feels really railroady! The players already had a choice, they chose otherwise, and the DM is basically telling them "ok, you chose wrong, go back and do the other path." Or just as bad, if the players are never given a choice - they encounter one quest-giver who tells them what to do, and they feel like they have no option but to follow because there's no other reasonable adventuring plotlines to do.
My guess is that the key to efficient DMing is to learn what you need to prepare for each specific location, what you can prepare generically and shift to any reasonable location, and what you can improvise.
My thoughts on Sandboxing. The Illusion of Agency.
Sandboxing Versus Railroading
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I must be the railroading-est DM who ever lived. When I create a campaign, I let the players know that they are starting out as agents of the local law enforcement or caravan guards or that they are going to be adventurers dropping into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Every single time. I've been DMing for many years, and I've never had someone complain that they were being railroaded into a story. Most seem to appreciate the structure because they can get creative with characters to fit the theme or adventure. Most every DM I've ever played with has done the same. How else do you create the story?
When I was young I go talked into running an evil campaign and it turned into the wildest murder-hobo-fest I've ever heard of. It was very free form and characters got to do whatever they wanted but ultimately they were unhappy with it because they were hounded to death by local law enforcement, adventurers and bounty hunters, until they realized that actions have consequences and the consequences ended up as dead or chained to an oar on the magistrates pleasure galley.
There always seems to be a big debate over "Sandbox vs Railroad".
There is a middle ground. I call it the Flowchart.
Don't try to write a narrative campaign from the first encounter to the final encounter. That simply won't work. There is no possible way you can predict all the things your players will want to do. If your year's worth of preparation is predicated on the players going east, and they decide to go west, what then? Do you throw away all that work, or do you suddenly start improvising off your cuff? No.
Don't write a narrative campaign. Sure, have an overarching theme. Build a final boss. And then just start writing scenes. A scene is an encounter that could take one game session or maybe a few. Each scene needs to have the NPCs listed, the action that starts the scene, and the requirements to resolve the scene. You may also list the type of environment where the scene takes place. Keep in mind: "environment" here does NOT mean "location". It's means something like "forest", not "this particular forest right here". Also - give each scene a title and a level range. Is this a scene for a party level 1 - 3, or a party level 10 - 14? Finally, arrange your scenes in level order from 1 to 20. Make sure that you have enough scenes so that there is enough overlap in the levels that there are at least two scenes covering each level.
Now that you have your scenes, imagine a flowchart in your mind. Start the party at some location and give them some options. Should they take the job protecting a caravan or the job investigating the stolen cows? This let's them feel like they control the story. Whatever they choose, run that scene. Each scene should be able to link to another scene of a higher level. Whichever way the players go, simply plug a scene into the flowchart and run it. If your players head into the mountains, choose a scene that takes place in that terrain. If they head into the Underdark, well, maybe you didn't write an Underdark scene. But maybe you wrote a scene where they have to go to a high elf city in a forest and negotiate for information. Change forest to caverns, change the trees to giant mushrooms, change high elves to Drow, and run that scene.
In your downtime between each play session, re-familiarize yourself with the scenes around that party level and have a few on hand ready to run, depending on which way the party jumps. Also - during that time, think of how their current scene will link to the next one. In the end, it's all just a flowchart, and you're just plugging interchangeable scenes into the flowchart each step along the way. And while you're writing each scene, be sure to make a note in each one reminding yourself how that particular scene is connected to your overarching story arc.
Does that make sense? It makes sense in my head, I just hope it's making sense outside my head.
For example, I've been worldbuilding for a whiles now and writing scenes for a big campaign I'm hoping to run. Here's a list of the scenes I have prepared so far:
The end goal is to make the players think that you have a million things prepared because no matter what they do or where they go you've got something ready. But the trick is that you really only have maybe two or three things ready at any given moment and you just plug one of those scenes into whatever location the players end up at in each session. As long as you remember how each scene fits into the story arc, it should all feel like a cohesive narrative story when it's run, because the players simply won't know about the roads they didn't follow.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
Railroading is usually only evaluated for events after the start of play.
That... actually sounds almost like a railroad.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying here, but... if you are going to have 3 scenes and plug one of them into wherever the characters go -- no matter where they go -- then that is a textbook railroad. It is the larger scale equivalent of making a dungeon map with a bunch of different halls and rooms, and having a key that says "whatever room they enter first is this," and "whatever room they enter second is that." It provides the illusion of choice, but not actual choice.
But maybe I have misinterpreted what you have said.
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True, but as any experience salesperson can tell you: “Reality isn’t reality, perception is reality.” While that may in fact be a railroad, as long as the illusion of choice is maintained, the players won’t know. Heck, even Mr. Colville has mentioned “moving the room” at least once.
I’m not personally fond of this approach, but ultimately, as long as everyone is having fun, is there any harm?
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You are not wrong - it sounds like a railroad because it is when you look at the mechanism at play but since they players don't know that and don't have a quick-load button then they don't mind (how could they since they have no way of verifying what is being done to them unless you actually admit it), as opposed to a hard railroad where they don't want to go somewhere but are forced there anyway by enemies shooting "Arrows of Player Killing" from "Bows of Plot Advancement".
An experienced player might sniff that something like this is happening when whenever they go there ALWAYS seems to be something exciting happening. When they are never late to save a village and always on time to get a quest from a half dead man left on the road they might start getting the feeling that everything revolves around their whereabouts.
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"An experienced player might sniff that something like this is happening when whenever they go there ALWAYS seems to be something exciting happening. When they are never late to save a village and always on time to get a quest from a half dead man left on the road they might start getting the feeling that everything revolves around their whereabouts."
Maybe I didn't explain properly. The player's choices are not without consequences. Events will continue to unfold throughout the game world regardless of where the players go. If they have a choice to go to Town A or Town B, and they go to Town A, then something horrible still might happen in Town B. They can't be everywhere, they can't save everyone, and they won't. An important part of the game is watching players learn that their decisions and their actions have consequences in the game world. That is immersion.
Otherwise, literally anything whatsoever that any DM ever writes or plans for any adventure anywhere ever could be considered "railroading". If you say they're starting in a town, they could say "That's railroading! We wanted to start in a big city!" If you say they search a forest and begin finding undead animals, they could say, "That's railroading! You know we hate fighting undead!" I mean, at some point you have to accept that a DM has to do some preparation and have something ready for the players. Is all of that to be considered "railroading"? It seems that the only option is that every DM make literally no plans whatsoever and completely improvise literally every session based on the player's actions. That sounds a bit unreasonable to me. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
The problem with that model is that it only works in the zero-information case. If you don't give the players enough information to make an informed decision about what they want to do next, it might as well be a railroad, and if you do give them enough information, they should avoid any encounters inappropriate to the informed decision they made.
As I said, I do not use that model. I take on the extra work of keeping as much living information about the world as I possibly can crammed into my head specifically so that I can make the players’ sandbox as real and dynamic as possible specifically to avoid using that model. In fact, by my reckoning, there are more problems with that model than the one you listed.
However, if the table is having fun, and if the DM can maintain the illusion, then I suppose that none of those problems are problems for them. Truth be told, some tables don’t care about a sandbox experience nearly as much as others. Some just want to drink beer and roll dice. Some want a more plot-centric storyline, which by default requires a certain degree of railroading to maintain. Different strokes for different folks.
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