Railroad vs Sandbox

Just a quick rant here.

I listened to the plot points episode about ravenloft on my drive back from Sacramento last week, and then I was thinking about the railroad vs sandbox argument today again. In the podcast Ben Riggs makes the argument that Ravenloft is really a sandbox from the point to entering Barovia to the end where Strahd is defeated; as long as they accept the end goal of killing Stahd they are free to wander around Barovis and do whatever they want; all you know is the beginning and endpoint. He makes a pretty persuasive argument, but I think he's wrong.

First off let me start by saying there are issues with using the terms 'railroad' and 'sandbox'; the terms themselves don't really represent what we mean when talking about rpg campaigns, Alexis and others have discussed this. But for the sake of this argument I'll be using those terms because they are so widely accepted and understood in the gaming community.

Ravenloft is not a sandbox because the adventure requires the PCs to complete a singular goal! Most published adventures are not sandboxes for this same reason; the PCs are given an objective, usually defeat a villain, and then sets up obstacles to hinder them from completing that goal.

IF THE DESTINATION IS KNOWN THE GAME IS A RAILROAD!!!!

I'm going to go ahead and say that's what separates a sandbox campaign from a railroad campaign. This doesn't mean the railroad is bad in and of itself, just that there is a clear dividing line, and that line is drawn at how the players set their goals. If their goals are dictated by the dm or module writer then they are on a railroad, if the players create their own goals that they personally care about they are playing in a sandbox campaign.

When the players choose from a list presented to them by the dm, they aren't playing a sandbox. Just because they have multiple hooks to latch onto does not mean they are playing in a sandbox game. These games where the dm claims it is a sandbox because the PCs can go in any direction and there is always a hook for adventure are still railroads, simply with many branches. they are railroads because the dm is the one to present the options to the players, and like sheep they follow wherever the dm leads. When the players go and create an adventure out of something which the dm did not intend to be a hook is when those games can become true sandboxes.

In a sandbox the PCs will create their own goals and do things which are unheard of in most gaming circles. You won't have players setting out to become druglords, or wanting to own a farm, or organizing tournaments so they can prove they're the best fighters, or building modern nation states, or becoming vassal to two different kings, or founding a cult. I could go on. These types of events are not the norm when someone thinks of a D&D adventure, but they all happened while I was either running or playing D&D and not some other system designed to let us be crime lords or farmers, etc. These events occurred because the players set their own goals and set out to achieve them, sometimes unsuccessfully, and they were given the opportunity to do this while playing in a true sandbox. In a sandbox, the world is presented and the players decide what to do in the world; the DM has the world react to the PC decisions. Whereas in a railroad the players react to the world as presented by the DM, the players are always reacting and never making proactive decisions.

The difference between a Sandbox and a Railroad campaign are who is setting the end goals of the campaign.

-------------------------------------------

Ok, I guess that was a rather longer rant than planned. I should be putting a post up about my conclusions from analyzing the cleric spell list pretty soon. Also I've been reworking the turn undead table as a means for casting clerical spells, and I've almost finalized a set of new houserules for use with BX/Old School Essentials. Oh yeah, and in the near future I will starting a series of posts as a tutorial of how to build a set maps for your fantasy world using QGIS.