Misconception that sandbox games are more prep

You might have seen my post on social about sandbox games being less work. And I do think that is the case, but I understand that that isn't how it may seem at first. I remember just struggling to run my first ever campaign, and the effort it took to execute the "story" in a satisfying way.

Now that was my first campaign ever, and the focus on the story was huge for me. I knew the end before the start, and a lot of the effort was getting the players on the right "track". Sounds like a railroad.

Now with sandbox game, you can still have that. I'll post later about the "types" of sandbox games, as I think there are a few. But for now let's focus on a sandbox game that has a story, but is a sandbox game. So there may be a villain, or a world-ending event, or some catastrophe to prevent, but then you've got all this other "stuff". Where the players can go anywhere, do anything.

To think about it, it is essentially the Skyrim style sandbox game. You've got the main quest with 100s of side quests. Some of those side quests have their whole own arc, and some are one and dones. Some can give you insight about the main quest, and some are completely unrelated.

And if you're sitting down and looking at this from a campaign planning or dungeon master prep perspective, you might compare it to a pre-published campaign. Six hundred pages of lore, combat, discoveries, roleplay, NPCs, monsters, adventure hooks, room descriptions, maps, art, etc. All wrapped up and scattered throughout 600 pages of splat.

So for a sandbox "campaign", it's easy to think that you need that to start. First, and a tangent, you don't need that for any campaign, except a pre-written one. And, second tangent, there's a reason why I don't write my adventures that way - it's a mess. So even preparing to run a pre-written or homebrew campaign, you don't need that 600 pages.

Here's where you'll spend the most time for a sandbox: homebrewing your own game world. But that's not exclusive to a sandbox game. If you run a narrative or story-focused game, you too will have a ton of work homebrewing your own game world. In my experience, all that homebrew worldbuilding is not super valuable. Fun, fulfilling, creative, and even impressive, yes, but valuable on the minute to minute session scale? Not really.

So first, if you want to run a sandbox, and you want to homebrew your own world, then go do that and when you're done, continue this guide. Because homebrewing that world does not set you up for a sandbox game. You can do what I do, and use the Forgotten Realms or some other campaign setting, or use your own. That's step one: have a campaign setting.

See the campaign is just a setting, and like any story, a setting isn't enough.

Next, let's continue on a story-driven sandbox game. Sounds like an oxymoron, but Skyrim shows us that is not the case. The big thing with a sandbox game, is deciding on an end point. Does it never end? End when the main quest is finished, when the players resolve all their arcs, when the party accomplishes their pre-defined goal? This should give you some insight into the other "types" of sandbox games, but, again, for a story driven one, the end is when the main quest is done.

So like any campaign, you should have your major story beats. They get the hook for the main quest, they find important clue or accomplish major task 1, 2, and 3, then confront the climax. You gut punch, then they have the REAL final climax, they win, game over.

With your story beats in hand, evaluate your main quest. Is it world ending? Does it make sense for anyone to do anything, at anytime, besides resolve it? Because if your main quest is so important and catastrophic that ignoring it wouldn't make sense, then you're probably going to end up with a pretty normal story campaign, not very sandbox like.

If it is too catastrophic or pressing, re-write, change it, or just move forward knowing you're going to run a story game, but with some sandbox elements.

Still, nothing has changed from prepping this sandbox compared to a normal campaign.

The only prep that is really different is the adventure hooks.

That's it.

Really. And if you run your game the way I have been running mine, even that isn't any different, it's just that you need more hooks, in general, and you need less "barbed" hooks.

To recap, a barbed hook is typically found at the end of a previous adventure, and is generally tied to the main quest or a PC backstory. These are the quests that PCs can't really ignore. They're barbed, they get emotionally stuck in your players' feet. And what's more, they give your players somewhere else to go. In sandbox games, you don't want your players to KNOW where to go ALL THE TIME.

They mostly need to not know where to go. At least adventure-wise. They shouldn't be able to say, "Okay, we got the artifact 1 of 3, and found artifact 2 of 3's location, so now we should go find artifact 2."

That's an illusion of choice. By giving your players the next quest, you've emotionally railroaded them into taking it. Sure, you're not REALLY forcing them to accept that next quest, but logically it makes the most sense.

Instead, with a sandbox, you have to give them that space and time between adventures. Let them come back to town safely and mosey about. Consider implementing some sort of "downtime" system or a "town mode". And that doesn't mean you need to prep every NPC, shopkeep, a building in town either. Just give them some above-the-table time to do whatever they want.

In the background, what you do need to prep, are 3-4 side adventure hooks. Not the adventure, not the map, not even the outline, just the hook. Vary the onset time, the prep time, and the type of hook.

For example:

Type: approached with hook

Onset: 1 day

Prep: 3 days, hard start time

Description: A local comes and asks the party to help with escorting the caravan to a nearby town. The caravan leaves in 3 days.

Type: emergency

Onset: 2 days

Prep: none

Description: when the players are at the inn, someone comes in screaming for help. There's been a monster attack, and the monster is heading this way.

Type: self-sought

Onset: 1 day

Prep:  hard end time, 2 days

Description: The player's hear a rumor about a cult planning to sacrifice baby orphans at a nearby mountain.

The key is the variation in onset time, and prep time, and, as well, to a lesser degree, the type of hook. You prep these hooks, then run some town time. Your players sit about doing town stuff like training or shopping or researching, and then on the second day in town, they get the first hook and hear the rumor for the 3rd hook. Then on day 2, they get the emergency hook.

Your world feels alive. The hooks can't all be completed at once. If they leave town before the emergency hook, then they hear about it or witness the aftermath, but they missed it. They chose to leave town, you didn't force them, and they missed the hook.

Then with the other two, if they escort the caravan, then they can't save the orphans. If they save the orphans, they can't escort the caravan. Or maybe they can, if they get back in time.

This is such a simple thing to do, and is really the heart of the sandbox. Even Skyrim doesn't do it this well, because in Skyrim, the quests don't expire. But in D&D, they can, and you don't lose anything as a DM because you didn't prep the adventure. You just prepped the hooks. Then your players choose one, you might have to improv the beginning, worst case scenario, and then the session ends and you've got your normal, prep an adventure before next session duty as a DM.

And that's why I mentioned pre-written stuff being such a boon to a sandbox game. First, the pre-written one shots and random adventures make sense in a sandbox game, and are expected. Not everything is connected. 

Second, having that pre-written adventure is such a convenience. Starting out, and even now, you, like me, might have a slight aversion to pre-written stuff. Maybe it's beneath you, or too unrelated, or robs you of the creative outlet.

But what about a sandbox, where you need 3-4 adventure hooks on hand at all times, of which your party can reasonably only be expected to complete 1... maybe 2. 

Sure, like I mentioned, you don't need to prep 3-4 adventures, just the hooks... but even that takes energy. And, arguably, more creative juice than picking one hook and designing one adventure. With 3-4, you need variety, spice, something different but still imaginative.

So that's why I argue for sandbox being less prep. By design, you don't prep anymore than a normal campaign, just extra hooks. And, because of the way it is structured, you can really lean a lot more on pre-written stuff. 

Choose a campaign setting, decide on your story beats, grab a hook from Owlbear Hunt or Necromancer's Curse, and/or design a couple yourself, prep your immersive elements like music, a town and world map, some art and some NPCs, and start your sandbox game.