Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Hi there, Midgardians!
So I wanna talk about the debate around which kind of campaign you think is better: a linear or a sandbox campaign.
Disclaimer: With railroading I meant a more linear campaign, so don't pay attention to the first poll. I apologise for the confusion.
I know you can mix both and that could probably be the best option, so I don't expect this to be a black or white debate.
I'm going to give my opinion—and I want to underline that it's just my opinion: there's not a unique way to play roleplaying games, and the way you play them is perfect as long as the people you play with and you like it.
So when I started playing D&D I read and saw on both forums and YouTube videos that linear campaigns were usually branded as "railroading", which apparently was a derogative term. The thing is, my idea as a player was that my character was an adventurer and the DM was going to tell me a story where I could change certain things and my character would evolve throughout the adventure (if I cared enough to create an interesting background). I expected the DM to guide us throughout his/her story, and I really enjoyed that kind of "gameplay". I honestly didn't care much about my character's agency, which is something many people complain about when they talk about railroading.
When I see people complaining about someone railroading an adventure and restricting their character's agency, I think sometimes the desire of having more agency may ruin the adventure. That is, imagine we are in the middle of an adventure in Neverwinter, and suddenly a player says: "You know what? I wanna travel to Baldur's Gate and see what's going on there"; or a player is not accepting any plot hooks, rejecting every single NPC proposal. How is that fun for the rest of the players or the DM? You are literally destroying the DM's work just because you think your character should have more agency.
In my opinion, I prefer well structured adventures, like a movie or a fantasy book, where there's a linear storyline that we, as adventurers, follow. When I've played sandbox campaigns, I felt the play style was more boring, because in many ways a sandbox adventure has not real plot, since—purportedly—the characters are creating it along the way, with the DM constantly improvising over what the players decide to do. So the feeling of not following a "pre-made" plot is not very appealing to me.
I know that I'm generalising, and I'm quite sure that there are loads of sandbox adventures that are amazing, but that kind of gameplay is not the most appealing thing to play to me. In other words, if I had to choose between Tyranny of Dragons and Curse of Strahd, I'd choose the former due to its more linear structure.
The way I see it is that I rather live an adventure created by a DM, since I'm not a fan of players creating the whole plot.
What do you prefer?
I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt that it's unintentional, but your choice of language somewhat poisons the well when it comes to the survey. The opposite of a sandbox campaign isn't a "railroad", it's a linear campaign. What you're effectively asking is "Would you rather have your steak perfectly cooked all the way through or basically raw and bloody?" when asking "medium vs well done".
Why have this:
And not just say linear in the survey?
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Simple: because I realised too late that the concept was going to be problematic. I can't change the survey nor the title of the thread, that's why I added the disclaimer. You had already read what I intended, so I see no point on your message. You can give your opinion about the topic, though.
You can edit surveys
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I don't know how. I've been able to add a new survey, but I can't delete the previous one. I also changed the thread's title (I didn't see the button in my smartphone).
PD: It doesn't seem to be any way to modify surveys, so no, you can't edit polls.
I prefer a mix of both, where there is an overall arching narrative or Big Plot, but then there are plenty of smaller side plots along the way. I especially like when those side plots are specific to a party member's "tragic backstory".
My example for this would be Critical Role Campaign 1. There were 3 basic Big Plot arcs they went through (Whitestone, Chroma Conclave, Whispered One). Within those Big Plot arcs were personal stories for each of the party members. Some of them tied fairly directly to the Big Plot (Grog's herd and Pike's family with the Chroma Conclave, Percy with Whitestone), however others were far more separate (Keyleth and the Aramenté, Vex and Vax and the city of Syngorn).
I try to do a similar things in my campaign. There's almost always a larger, overarching plot with varying degrees of "this needs to be addressed now/soon", and then PC focused storylines, mixed in with some of your classic totally-optional side quests.
I’ll push back a bit in the OP’s description of a game. It is not the DM’s story. It is everyone’s story. If it’s just the DM’s story, and the players are just along for the ride, then what’s the point of playing. As I often say when someone describes a railroad campaign, you can just send the players an email and tell them what happened. This, imo, is why railroad campaigns are looked on unfavorably. One of the great selling points of the game is that the PCs can have an impact on the world. But in a railroad, the DM has already decided what that impact will be, so what’s the point of playing?
And it is really one of the big differences between a tabletop game and a computer game. Even in something open and sandboxy as BG3, the characters can’t just decide, screw it, let’s go to Neverwinter. You have an illusion of choice much more than a true open set of choices.
Ideally, this is one of the things you cover in a session 0. Everyone at that point buys in to the kind of story they all want to tell. Then the DM sets up the world that will serve that story, and then everyone tells it together.
Also, import to note the third big factor in the game, the dice. They will often force the story in a different direction than anyone thought it would go.
I prefer linear. D&D isn't a video game, movie or novel.
Just to clarify:
When I said it is the DM's story I meant the DM has prepared it. A storyline, a plot... Of course players can change things throughout the campaign, and I do agree it's a shared story, built between the DM and the players.
That said, I totally understand and respect your point of view: you prefer to feel free to go wherever you wanna go during a campaign, not following a linear plot (or not having the feeling of being forced to follow it). However, when you ask: "What's the point of playing?", regarding a railroaded adventure, you are implying that's not how you should be playing D&D, but maybe there are players that like to be railroaded. I don't like that, of course, but I know people who prefer a railroaded adventure because they don't really care about their character's agency, and that's totally fine.
And when you talk about a character making an impact in the world, what do you mean by that? If you meant that their decisions should matter, I agree with you. But if the decisions of one player are disturbing the rest of the group's enjoyment, I don't see that agency as something possitive. Imagine there are 4 players and 3 of them are enjoying the storyline so far, but the fourth one says: "I wanna go to Waterdeep, because I don't like this". Well, that player would be making an impact, but I'm pretty sure the rest of the party is not going to lime having such a player amongst them.
Isn't a linear adventure more similar to what you are complaining about in your second sentence?
Also, I think D&D is whatever the players want it to be. As I said in a previous post, some players enjoy being railroaded, and that's not a wrong way to play it (in my opinion).
Really there almost always has to be some degree of linear to a campaign, given that DMs generally can only run scenarios they have some amount of preparation/groundwork for. The social contract- whether explicitly addressed or left implicit- is that the party is going to engage with the general plot the DM lays out. If they get pointed at a BBEG to go fight, it’s pretty bad form to just turn around and look for monsters to hunt or ruins to explore instead. That’s not to say DMs should choreograph every scene, but it’s a rare DM that’s up for a truly sandbox campaign.
I totally agree with you. The question would be: does a "truly sandbox campaign" exist? Because I think it's something almost impossible to achieve. I see it more as a pipe dream, because I don't think players will ever be 100% free to do whatever they wanna do. In my opinion, there's always some amount railroading in every campaign.
I loved how you expressed the concept of "social contract." I'm gonna use it in my future sessions 0. 😊
My standard DMing style is that at the end of every session I ask the players where they want to go next, and figure by the time the next session arrives I can be prepared. I'm not a pure sandbox DM -- my campaigns do have an overarching plot -- but you certainly could run a pure sandbox that way.
It depends a lot on the players and GM. (And how you define "linear" and "sandbox".)
At the start of my current game, I basically had one big backstory event that had ongoing consequences, and an initial setup that gave them freedom of action and also some immediately relevant events to react to. Everything else has come from throwing plot hooks at them, and building out the ones they bite on, and really building out the ones they really bite on -- one of the primary plot lines didn't exist until I had to build out the backstory of a new PC. And if they hadn't bit on that part of the background, it would've ended up less important.
Meanwhile, the big pre-existing thing just kept on developing in the background until it intersected with their interests. (They weren't ignoring it as such, but the plot hooks that would lead them deeper in earlier on weren't ones they were really into.)
But each individual plot line is often more linear. They run their natural course, and may or may not spin off consequences. Depending on how things progress, the game may actually be fairly linear at times. (In my game, their opposition to the evil dead gods cult would've looked fairly linear for a long time, until the human-elf war pulled their attention off it.)
But I run a sandbox game because I'm lazy. I'm rarely prepped more than a single session in advance, and sometimes not even that. My last session, I had no idea which way the players were going to jump next. (And for next session, I have to figure out how various major powers are going to react to their decision to invent war crimes trials.)
All I have is a bunch of things that I know are going on, and the ability to answer the questions "how are things going to progress if the PCs don't get involved?" and "is anyone going to react to events in a way that will involve the PCs?". And then I drop hints (subtle or not) about the first ones as they go about their business, and toss the second ones at the PCs, especially if they seem to be floundering, but even if they're not.
But, even as a sandbox, I'm mostly developing plot lines. It's been a long time since I had to toss something completely unrelated to past events at them.
Don't you railroad them now and then?
Pretty interesting the big plot working "in the shadows" until players take a hook that leads to it. I'm gonna use that too! 😊
Because it gives you a chance to clarify your intent (which you did), as well as to edit the survey (which you appear to not know how to do, so fair enough.)
I don't mind a mix of both but ultimately, I prefer a clearly defined goal/stakes, even if there are a variety of routes/order of operations to get there. I think that puts me more on the linear end of the spectrum than the sandbox end.
Not unless you count "events have progressed in a way that they can't not react to it", "their enemies take direct action against them", or "they're looking for something to do, so I provide it" as railroading.
With different players, I might structure the game differently. In particular, with newer players, I'd be much more likely to have an assigned-task setup, instead of "Welcome to spelljammer. Your captain's dead, and you have clear legit title to the ship. Go." But that's about knowing your players.
I've been checking and there's no way to edit a survey. I had already clarified what I intended in my first post and he had already read my clarification when he answered, that's why I think his post was pointless. I just think he could have spent his time answering to the topic of the post rather than pointing out something that had already been explained throughout my first post, but fair enough.
Do you believe players should know something about the lore of the setting to be able to be part of a sandbox adventure?
I tend to think a sandbox is kind of difficult to perform if your players don't know anything about the world they are in.
Nope.
This is literally the case in my spelljammer game. The PCs had no idea that there was such a thing. They were entirely fish out of water, and the captain who hired them was dead, so they didn't even know how to get back to where they came from if they wanted to.
Anyway, lore is overemphasized in general. Players don't remember it. In a standard-issue D&D setting, you need relatively little lore, and it's still mostly for the DM's benefit. The players will more-or-less pick up the stuff that matters as it affects their characters, and that's true whether or not they were given anything about the game setting to start with.