Most of the information I have read on threads in the Forums has had Random encounters in sandbox campaigns.

I have started a Sandbox sort of campaign but don't really care for random encounters in my games.

What are the major pros and cons of using them.

I am defining Sandbox as all I have is a small town very loosely defined that I have allowed / forced players to come up with at least two of the following.

A place or interesting thing in the world outside the town
A place in the  town (business or otherwise)
A relationship with someone in the town
a connection to other characters in the group.

A sandbox, to me, is that I have not prefabricated anything about the world beyond making a map. I have a map of the town and the "world" but very few things are labeled or defined yet.

Thanks for any useful comments, less useful arguments can go screw themselves

Okay, so if you've prefabricated nothing beyond the initial town and map, how do you plan to populate it with anything of interest without using random encounter tables in some fashion?

I think wrapped up in your question are some implicit assumptions about what a random encounter is and isn't that aren't really useful. A random encounter is just a content generation tool that can also serve to emulate a living setting.

You can roll on the table a number of times before play begins and use the results as creative seeds for content present in the vicinity of the party that they might encounter, or you can roll in play and improvise from there (or some mixture of the two). The latter has the added advantage of emulating a dynamic world where one can unexpectedly encounter something present in the same vicinity. The alternative to these is that you pre-build everything.

As for actually using the tool, assuming you go with a minimalist random encounter table that just contains a creature type and number encountered for each entry, the point of it is to give the DM a starting point to make an interesting encounter. So you rolled 12 orcs, and maybe generated an encounter distance based on the terrain; now what? Well, why are they there? What are they doing? Where are they from? Where are they going? Are they interested in outsiders? If so, for what reason? What connections do they have (or not) with previous encounters or other content you've already created? Having (and being pushed into creating) answers to these questions are what make a random encounter worthwhile. If you just announce, "12 orcs are 100 yards away from you, what do you do?" you've entirely missed the point of the tool.

Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;713777I have started a Sandbox sort of campaign but don't really care for random encounters in my games.

If you don't have a mechanism for unplanned (non GM mandated) encounters, you aren't running a "sandbox".

Quote from: Arduin;713790If you don't have a mechanism for unplanned (non GM mandated) encounters, you aren't running a "sandbox".

This isn't really true. You could pre-fabricate an enormous amount of content, including the likes of wandering monster (such as demarcating patrol routes and times, a predator's hunting range, etc.), but the question is, "Why?" as random encounters allow this type of content to be built on the fly with much less wasted effort (i.e. encounters the party never stumbles into). Regardless, pre-generating content doesn't prevent it from being a Sandbox, as long as the party can go wherever and do whatever they like, with the DM having the world react in a sensible fashion.

Quote from: Arduin;713790If you don't have a mechanism for unplanned (non GM mandated) encounters, you aren't running a "sandbox".

I don't think that's true.  Sandbox just refers to giving the players/PCs the freedom to go and explore wherever they want within the boundaries of a predefined region/setting.  Theoretically, they could just wander around until they ran across one of the DM-created encounters/keyed locations.  It might be a boring game, and it might not be "D&D", but I think that it would still qualify as a sandbox.

OP when you say

QuoteA sandbox, to me, is that I have not prefabricated anything about the world beyond making a map. I have a map of the town and the "world" but very few things are labeled or defined yet.

Do you mean you want to make everything up on the fly?  That's the only alternative I can think of to "no planned or random encounters".

Quote from: Technomancer;713793Theoretically, they could just wander around until they ran across one of the DM-created encounters/keyed locations.

aka railroading aka NOT sandbox.  What you described is no different that a video game.  No interaction unless pre-written in the script.

Quote from: Arduin;713794aka railroading aka NOT sandbox.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Quote from: Bobloblah;713796You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

What you think has no bearing on reality.

Quote from: Arduin;713797What you think has no bearing on reality.

You know, I keep expecting that by sheer, random chance, you will end up being right about something, sooner or later. I'm beginning to think I'd best not hold my breath, as you are possibly the dumbest poster this board has ever seen. Have you posted in a thread where you haven't made a fool of yourself?

Your definition of both Sandbox and Railroad appear to be yours, and yours alone. Much like every other definition you've spouted amidst your constant stream of juvenile insults.

No, random encounters are not necessary to run a sandbox. What random encounter tables accomplish is to model the probabilities of encountering this or that inhabitant or hazard or phenomenon in the area concerned, whether we are talking about the wilderness, the dungeon, the city, whatever the case may be, with the intent of generating the actual particulars of the circumstances in the game world completely organically, randomly, using first a frequency check to see IF an encounter occurs, and then, when it occurs, to determine the particulars of the encounter concerned.

It's basically a tool that allows you to shape the adventure possibilities and make up of a particular area in order to generate events, encounters, happenings based on the logic sustaining the world, while at the time guaranteeing that these occurrences are spawned by the dice, impartial, random tools, rather than your mind, which could be tempted to trigger these happenings based on your bias instead, whatever that bias ends up being, whether it's being tough or lenient on the players "because," whether you apply a dramatic metagame logic onto the events unfolding in the game world, and so on.

Now, you can role play the world and things just "happen" in your mind. Encounters might very well just spring out of your imagination on the spot for no other reason than you visualizing and role playing the world and "it's just pops in there". When you immerse yourself as GM in the world, the world tends to take a life of its own beyond your conscious decisions. It's a normal role playing process IMO. So in that sense, you could role play the world, skip random encounters altogether, and still have a "sandbox" per se.

I like to use both, personally, and I think of random encounter tables as core tools in the sandbox. They're not "necessary" in and of themselves (the problem with a word like "necessary" is that it implies an absolute, 'either you have this, or that is impossible), but they are pretty damn important to guarantee an organic development of the circumstances in the game world, for me.

In my experience, as a practical matter, if I want to do a sandbox then I need a method for at-table procedural content generation, as opposed to crafted content generation. So I need random encounters or something very like it. I try to run my 4e Loudwater campaign as open as possible, but the lack of wandering monsters/random encounters/procedural content generation means that it can't be a true sandbox IME.
If you don't find you need them - if you can create/detail crafted content for any part of your sandbox in response to player input - and you don't like using them - then sure, don't use them.

Quote from: Bobloblah;713789Okay, so if you've prefabricated nothing beyond the initial town and map, how do you plan to populate it with anything of interest without using random encounter tables in some fashion?

I think wrapped up in your question are some implicit assumptions about what a random encounter is and isn't that aren't really useful. A random encounter is just a content generation tool that can also serve to emulate a living setting.

You can roll on the table a number of times before play begins and use the results as creative seeds for content present in the vicinity of the party that they might encounter, or you can roll in play and improvise from there (or some mixture of the two). The latter has the added advantage of emulating a dynamic world where one can unexpectedly encounter something present in the same vicinity. The alternative to these is that you pre-build everything.

As for actually using the tool, assuming you go with a minimalist random encounter table that just contains a creature type and number encountered for each entry, the point of it is to give the DM a starting point to make an interesting encounter. So you rolled 12 orcs, and maybe generated an encounter distance based on the terrain; now what? Well, why are they there? What are they doing? Where are they from? Where are they going? Are they interested in outsiders? If so, for what reason? What connections do they have (or not) with previous encounters or other content you've already created? Having (and being pushed into creating) answers to these questions are what make a random encounter worthwhile. If you just announce, "12 orcs are 100 yards away from you, what do you do?" you've entirely missed the point of the tool.

Good stuff here.

In order to run a sandbox without any random encounters you need to do a whole lot of work that may never see the light of play.

Also, if there are no random encounters and there is nothing defined outside of town, how do you know what the PCs will run into absent illusionism?

Without location based encounteres fleshed out OR random encounters its just a matter of plopping what you will in front of the players at a time/place of your choosing. That is NOT a sandbox.

Random encounters don't have to be dictated to you by a rulebook or even terrain type. I create the custom random encounter tables for my campaign and only put things on them that make sense for the area. Likewise frequency of checks depends on where you are.

Checks during the day on established roads are very frequent. The majority of the encounters will be travelling farmers, merchants, guard patrols and such. I use these tables because I certainly don't want to detail every individual in the region along with their travel habits and track them.

I give players maps of the "known" area showing major roads, hamlets and such, and let them explore the area acting on information obtained from various sources (such as talking to some of the npcs in those random encounters).

There are also areas on my copy of the map not shown on the players' version, such as the cultists secret hideout, the ruined tower in the woods, the giant weasels lair, etc. The players can add these to their map as they explore. Its important for internal consistency that I know whats out there at least in a general sense. For example the players kept running across giant weasel tracks and decided to track it to its lair. While doing so they discovered a ruined tower in the woods and a dungeon beneath. I had already placed the dungeon and detailed it so I knew based on where they went if they would find it.

Had I just whipped up a dungeon and placed it wherever the players went, it wouldn't be a sandbox. The world wouldn't exist independent of player activity which is the key ingredient of a sandbox.

The only thing that is necessary for a sandbox campaign is that when your players ignore your hooks and decide to head off to do whatever random thing struck their fancy that you can handle it. Random charts will make that so much easier it isn't even funny. You can stretch your prepared material with the "moveable encounter", where you just stick your prepared material in the way of the PCs regardless of which way they go, but at that point you aren't really running a sandbox - even if it fools your players (which it probably won't).

Quote from: therealjcm;713809The only thing that is necessary for a sandbox campaign is that when your players ignore your hooks and decide to head off to do whatever random thing struck their fancy that you can handle it. Random charts will make that so much easier it isn't even funny.

Agreed, well said.

Quote from: therealjcm;713809The only thing that is necessary for a sandbox campaign is that when your players ignore your hooks and decide to head off to do whatever random thing struck their fancy that you can handle it. Random charts will make that so much easier it isn't even funny. You can stretch your prepared material with the "moveable encounter", where you just stick your prepared material in the way of the PCs regardless of which way they go, but at that point you aren't really running a sandbox - even if it fools your players (which it probably won't).

Is there really that much of a difference though?

I agree that a fifty level brute of a dungeon should have a fixed location on the map, if only because it should have profound effects on the surrounding area, but a random encounter table is just a list of monsters. They may even have other monsters in tow.

Is it that much of a stretch to prepare the haunted ruin of a mill with a five room dungeon under it and a few quirks, then place it wherever the PCs happen to be if that's what is rolled on the random table? Seems like much the same thing only with a small map.

It might even make the game a lot more interesting, given the added depth and little quirks that having a half hour to prepare each encounter will bring. More integration could be included by shaping the encouter around the group's latest actions, if sufficiently infamous.

Equivalently one might also have an environment table alongside the random encounter table, so you roll... 14 orcs in a ...dry gulley at ...twilight. It's the same thing but a little more randomised and a little less involved.