Would you find this setup fun?

[Traab]

You get a campaign thats basically a sandbox, go do whatever you want. But the DM makes sure you are aware in game that there are several threats and explains ooc that all these threats will continue to progress depending on what you choose to do. As an example, there are bandits in the forest attacking travelers. You can go wipe them out now. But if you choose to go elsewhere first following one of the other plot hooks, the bandits numbers will grow. The traps setup to protect their camps will get worse, they will eventually recruit mercenaries with varying class levels, etc. Eventually they will be bold enough and powerful enough to raid the town you are headquartered in.

So basically the point is, you pick and choose what dangers you want to face, knowing that whatever you arent facing off against is going to be there, and more dangerous, as time passes. So choose your own adventure, missing kids being taken to the sewers? The bandits getting bold? Rumors of an undead army growing? Want to open a tavern and have the barbarian be the bouncer, the bard be the entertainment and the rogue rob every guest blind? Your choice, just be prepared for problems to develop with whatever threat you pushed to the side. The missing kids were used in a ritual to open a portal thats pooping out swarms of demons, the bandits are attacking the town, the undead army has absorbed the population of 5 towns into its forces and is heading your way. The town guard got reports of customers being robbed whenever they stay at this inn and are here to shut you down.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If the idea is "no matter what you do, the things you can't do snowball and wreck everything later" (ie you have a set of "world-ending" threats, but you can only do one), then no.

But if it's a slow burn on all of them, then that's my kinda preference.

[The Glyphstone]

That's my thoughts too. As written and presented it comes across as a sort of GM vs. Player hostility, where the GM is giving all these plot options and the players are always choosing 'none of the above', thus allowing to punish them. Sure, if they decide to open a tavern the demon ritual will complete and the bandits will raid and the undead army will grow. But if they do follow one of the plots like wiping out the bandits, they still get punished because the undead army and demon ritual grow.

Having the world grow and progress offscreen is one thing, and helps immersion, but a game of constant whack-a-mole that rubs 'you didn't handle this problem and now it's worse' in my face when there are more problems than it's possible to solve simultaneously would definitely rub me the wrong way.

[JNAProductions]

That's my thoughts too. As written and presented it comes across as a sort of GM vs. Player hostility, where the GM is giving all these plot options and the players are always choosing 'none of the above', thus allowing to punish them. Sure, if they decide to open a tavern the demon ritual will complete and the bandits will raid and the undead army will grow. But if they do follow one of the plots like wiping out the bandits, they still get punished because the undead army and demon ritual grow.

Having the world grow and progress offscreen is one thing, and helps immersion, but a game of constant whack-a-mole that rubs 'you didn't handle this problem and now it's worse' in my face when there are more problems than it's possible to solve simultaneously would definitely rub me the wrong way.

Yeah. Echoing this.

The general idea (the world has other stuff happening than what's on-screen) is good, even in non-sandboxy games. But the specific implementation you spoke of might not be the best for it.

So, to answer the question... It really depends how good the DM is and how exactly everything is implemented.

[MoiMagnus]

Possibly not, though it would heavily depends on the actual execution.

Here would be my fears:
(1) Every choice is a bad choice. I don't like being implicitly told "you should have made the other choice" when the other choice would have been arguably worst, and the situation you're building seems to be a succession of those. Though again, it heavily depends on how much of a "no win situation" you're intending to build.
(2) The way you're presenting it, the PCs would end up having to solve a lot of mundane problems in order to prevent those from becoming actual big issues. The optimal way to play (dealing with threats early) doesn't sound very exiting. It seems that the player might end up in a "I'd like to go make this quest to find this cool item because it's fun, but on the other hand we have those boring threats to deal with and I guess it's more optimal to deal with them while they're still boring".
(3) You're kind of implying that anything the PC doesn't care about is necessarily going to become hostile to them if they "win". If true, you're kind of restricting yourself on what kind of "threat" the PCs will be dealing with, and you might want to also add some "arguably threats" like "A faction is trying to gain some powers and will succeed if not stopped. Is it good? Is it bad? It depends if you agree with their ideologies, and/or care about those who will be wronged because of it. You might even want to help them rather than eliminate them."

I know this post was very negative (much more than I intended, sorry for that), but since you only talked about the "bad things" that happened to the players without giving hints about what unique opportunities lies in the "total freedom" of a sandbox, it's very difficult to be exited about it.

[LibraryOgre]

I do something similar to everyone's suggestions when I have the time for a big campaign.

Basically, there are a number of things going on. Focusing on any one allows the others to progress, but it doesn't mean world-ending, just that plans move forward.

For example, in one game, I had the elves retaking Cormanthor, drow capturing Lythari to turn into werewolves, the Zhents and Hillsafar were sparring and trying to expand, and the hobgoblins were setting up a Dale and trying to get into the Dale's Council. All of these continued no matter what the players did; none of them were world-ending, but not addressing one meant that the others continued. Ignore the hobgoblins and they get more entrenched in their Dale and set up trading relations with Sembia. Ignore the Zhents and Hillsafar and they're going to cause destruction. Ignore the drow and they're going to get more werewolves and get more powerful.

Time became a currency, and player goals and character loyalties were not united. It was fun.

[Traab]

Sorry, didnt mean to imply they become world ending threats, narratively the threats grow worse as time goes on with noone wiping them out, gameplay wise, they are leveling up with you. So your team of level 3s go clear out the bandits that are balanced for a party of level 3 players. You come back and now the sewer threat is balanced around say, a level 5 party. The reverse applies if you chose to go save the kids first. The dm adjusts the story of each threat depending on order of operation. The sewer story is at first some basic cultists rats and whatnot for a low level party. If you go later its imps all over the place, the portal is only now opening, so the bigger stuff cant come through. Wait even longer and oh no, barbed devils! Adjust as challenge rating demands to make it work out, you get the general idea though.

[LibraryOgre]

The only thing I might do differently than that is leave at least a couple of the places relatively unpowered. Like, the bandits may have some more defenses, but instead of making them all level, they're all now level 2.

Occasionally, it's fun to give the players a cakewalk.

[Pauly]

The other thing I would add is rivals.

If the players don’t clear out the bandits another adventuring party takes the challenge. In the meantime travelers mention seeing giant tracks in the mountain passes

[HumanFighter]

I think what you have here is a wonderful idea, Traab. While great from a top-down perspective, you must be careful not to mess up the nitty gritty details.
Yes, threats grow more powerful the longer the players ignore them. But, (hopefully) the players will also be more powerful by that time, allowing them to deal with the problems appropriately.
Following along with your examples, it might be a good idea to include some means in the campaign world to make dealing with such threats easier, such as magical items/artifacts and allied armies or something like that. Of the 3 threats that have been discussed, I would say the undead army is probably the most threatening, so if I were GM I would create some sort of powerful weapon against the undead, but it is hidden in the mountains in an ancient, forgotten temple and not so easy to get to, but totally worth it as it would make it easier to slaughter zombies/skeletons in droves, like an AOE holy power effect.
But this undead army brings up some questions. Does this army have a leader, like a necromancer or lich or something, perhaps an undead general who wants revenge on the king and his descendents for abandoning him in the battle of Generic Mountain Pass against goblins/orcs/rebels or something like that. Or maybe the army is led by a mortal necromancer who is in love with the princess, and is trying to impress her with his army or force her to marry him? Or perhaps a Lich who has long since lost all his humanity and is starting this invasion just to see how people and society would react to it, out of scholarly curiosity?

The demon portal thing though is so played-out, you know what I mean?
As for the bandits, I would just poison their water/food supply or spread a disease through their camp, if I was playing an Evil character that is
Oooh, perhaps when all the bandits die this way, they can be added to the undead army! Unless of course the PCs burn all the bodies (which they should always do if there is undead about)

[icefractal]

While I'm on board with threats increasing over time, I wouldn't scale them all at the same rate as the PCs - that seems like the level auto-scaling from Oblivion, which most people disliked (myself among them).

It's better for it to depend on the threat in question. Maybe the bandits will quickly grow in number if left unchecked, but once they get, say, 3x the size, they've hit the limit of the area's traffic and pretty much remain static. The cultists don't change much until six months have gone by, at which point they're able to open a portal and rapidly become a major threat with powerful demons involved. The zombie army keeps steadily growing until stopped, but the PCs aren't the only ones fighting against it either.

Would this potentially produce unbalanced encounters? Yes. IMO, having at least a few unbalanced situations (both in the PCs' favor and against) is good for the sandbox feel, maybe even necessary.

Also, not every threat should require solving, else there's not really any choice involved.

[Composer99]

This reminds me of the "front" mechanic from Dungeon World.

I think this set-up is fine, more or less, but I do think there are a few things you'll want to do in order to make it more fun. Some of these suggestions might be repeats or paraphrases of other suggestions upthread.

In no particular order:

First, make sure rewards scale with the danger of a threat. If the PCs wait to deal with something, they get more out of it when they do deal with it.

Second, have other forces in the game world that eventually deal with some threats independently of the PCs actions. Like if a bandit group gets too big, regional powers might send in an army to stamp them out. Alternately, those forces or factions might stymie or hold back growing threats without resolving them. Rival adventuring parties, as someone else has mentioned upthread, is also a good choice.

Third, don't have threats be world-ending. Part of the appeal of a sandbox is the idea that the PCs set their own agenda. If they have to constantly be putting it aside to deal with stuff, that's kind of undermining the point of a sandbox game.

Fourth, find ways to have resolving threats tie into the PCs' own goals. Maybe the cult has tomes of magical lore that the PC wizard will want for some special project of theirs, or maybe the bandits happen to have taken a master brewer prisoner who can give the PCs recipes for quality brews that will make their tavern a hit, that sort of thing. The PCs don't have to know in advance going in that this will happen, and not every threat has to have this kind of thing, but it's a nice way to make it worthwhile to deal with stuff.

Fifth, don't have all threats scale at the same rate. Some threats should cap out at a lower level. The bandits, for instance, should probably be a pushover at some point of PC growth. (Obviously, this depends on the game system you're playing.) (For more on this, look at icefractal's advice.)

Finally, get a feel for what kind of game the players want to play. If they really want to just play "tavern owner, the RPG"... then maybe a game where they're assumed to be adventurers is the wrong game? Perhaps a system that lets you emulate town politics, complications that arise in running a business in a fantastic world, barroom brawls, might be a better fit. (And then the threats can be more appropriate to the kind of game the players want to play, like rival businesses, temperance movements, or what-have-you.)

[Yora]

This is how adventurer campaigns should be played.

[OldTrees1]

Yes I would find that fun. An ideal implementation of this idea has the threats (or parties) progress on their own timeline rather than a party centric timeline. This allows those actors to collide with each other and for the party decisions against early threats impact their advantage/disadvantage against later threats. This gives the impression that the party is just one of many groups in a living world.

This also rewards parties that try and succeed at diplomatic solutions.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes I would find that fun. An ideal implementation of this idea has the threats (or parties) progress on their own timeline rather than a party centric timeline. This allows those actors to collide with each other and for the party decisions against early threats impact their advantage/disadvantage against later threats. This gives the impression that the party is just one of many groups in a living world.

This also rewards parties that try and succeed at diplomatic solutions.

I agree (with the "don't make them all world-ending threats" caveat). Some threats should level up. Some threats shouldn't. Some are slow-burning threats that ramp up over decades (so an individual campaign length isn't a major change); some are intrinsically limited (the greedy merchant who is swindling the townsfolk isn't going to grow into one who's swindling the nations, at least not all the time). Some threats may be dealt with by other forces--the party isn't the only one with agency, after all. Now how those other forces deal with things may be different than how the party would do it (for better, worse, or sideways), but the threats may go away at some time. And if the party gets a reputation for how they deal (good or bad or sideways) with threats, other threats may react, as may other non-threat forces. When the mighty dragonslayers come back into town to face the lowly bandits, the bandits may cut and run, because they know they're no match for the dragonslayers. Or if the party gets a reputation for scorched-earth tactics and collateral damage, the town may not want them to handle the sewer issue.

The world lives, even when the party isn't there.

[Mordar]

Do you envision this as a way to make the whole world scale (more or less) with the PCs, or to emulate that things change in the world with or without the PCs action?

I'm more in favor of the latter...maybe someone else comes along and manages the bandits, maybe the children not rescued from the sewers survive and are later discovered to be replicants/possessed/space aliens...than the former (everything just comes up with a reason to be higher CR). That being said, some key rivals/story elements could totally scale ala Haley's nemesis and that's perfectly acceptable to me.

- M

[Quertus]

So long as it's actually "if you ignore the bandits and the Necromancer long enough, the Necromancer kills all the bandits, and adds them to his undead army", and "I'm actually the Necromancer", then it's fine.

[Telok]

The only question I'd have is if its a real sandbox or a pretend one.

Lure the bandits & necro army onto the plains in late summer then start a prairie fire while they skirmish. Polymorph a t-rex into a kid and let them get snagged for sacrifice, with the spell timed to wear off during the ritual. Wipe the town off the map because everyone accidentally rolled ecoterror druids and fey warlocks. Thats a good sandbox game.

Or is it two "random" travel encounters then a dungeon with 6 level appropriate fights then the boss, and your only choice is what order you do them in because you're milestoning to make them happen exactly at levels 3, 6, and 9? Fake sandbox woth false advertising. Bad.

[Mercureality]

You get a campaign thats basically a sandbox, go do whatever you want. But the DM makes sure you are aware in game that there are several threats and explains ooc that all these threats will continue to progress depending on what you choose to do. As an example, there are bandits in the forest attacking travelers. You can go wipe them out now. But if you choose to go elsewhere first following one of the other plot hooks, the bandits numbers will grow. The traps setup to protect their camps will get worse, they will eventually recruit mercenaries with varying class levels, etc. Eventually they will be bold enough and powerful enough to raid the town you are headquartered in.

So basically the point is, you pick and choose what dangers you want to face, knowing that whatever you arent facing off against is going to be there, and more dangerous, as time passes. So choose your own adventure, missing kids being taken to the sewers? The bandits getting bold? Rumors of an undead army growing? Want to open a tavern and have the barbarian be the bouncer, the bard be the entertainment and the rogue rob every guest blind? Your choice, just be prepared for problems to develop with whatever threat you pushed to the side. The missing kids were used in a ritual to open a portal thats pooping out swarms of demons, the bandits are attacking the town, the undead army has absorbed the population of 5 towns into its forces and is heading your way. The town guard got reports of customers being robbed whenever they stay at this inn and are here to shut you down.

I've played several sandboxes like this and they ranged from awesome to one of my favorite D&D games of all time. I guess it just takes a deft GM. Mostly it just made the world feel more alive and complex, in a good way.

[Yora]

An important thing many people have discovered about such campaigns is that there needs to be some default activity that always makes sense for the PCs, which they can always pick up again when there's currently nothing they can do about the things they are interested in and the things that are happening nearby don't interest them. Which is why making the PCs treasure hunters as their main job often works so well. You can always go explore a dungeon and see what comes off that.

[Xervous]

Oh look it’s the campaign I’m currently running. Biggest point is that threats don’t grow to world ending size, just that they may impact something for the long term.

The players ran off to the fantastical frontier rather than do anything about the wereshark armada. This allowed Parnell Shipping and Salvage to bribe up a fleet of mercenaries to save Joro’s Landing (after the fleet had munched up plenty of rival companies’ ships), and it led to the man known as Jungle pulling out some serious mojo to protect his mercantile investments... and ended up being viewed as the hero who saved the city.

Living worlds are a bunch of moving parts, pieces that bounce off each other to new trajectories. As the GM you pick how all your pieces begin moving, which ones collide, and where they go after that. Introducing the players adds agents of chaos, they divert pieces from your pattern and you revise the pattern. A setup where things only appear to be moving when the players draw near is more like an animatronic theme park.

[False God]

Sorta. I don't like the idea that the situation will only get worse.

I run a similar setup. I usually provide my players some "training wheels" quests and direction when they first hit the table and after that let them choose where they'd like to go based on what they've learned and are interested in. The main difference being that other people are out there that may deal with these problems. They might resolve them, they might make them worse, they might have no impact on them at all.

I generally like the idea that the world is moving with or without my participation and getting to control the direction (more or less) that I move in.

[KorvinStarmast]

But if it's a slow burn on all of them, then that's my kinda preference.

That's my Saltmarsh campaign in a nutshell.
For the OP: what you describe is a little bit like an RTS. If you focus on the zerg home base, and don't at least scout out the Protoss base, you may get flanked/schwacked by the Protoss if they have enough time to built up raid power for your base.

But if they do follow one of the plots like wiping out the bandits, they still get punished because the undead army and demon ritual grow.

That's hardly punishment. That's the world being the world. The issue is rate of change.

The world lives, even when the party isn't there.

Bingo.

[Jay R]

This is not that different from saying, "Wherever you go, and whatever you do, you will face challenging encounters for a party of your level."

Aside from the previews of the next several story arcs, I don't see that as a new setup; it's pretty much the default assumption.

[Yora]

Unfortunately for D&D, the default assumption is "The GM tells you a story, except when you have to guess what's supposed to happen next before it continues, and you ocasionally roll dice for fights, which you will all win regardless of how you roll."

[Telok]

Unfortunately for D&D, the default assumption is "The GM tells you a story, except when you have to guess what's supposed to happen next before it continues, and you ocasionally roll dice for fights, which you will all win regardless of how you roll."

Take over the bandits. Be the necromancer. Pact with the demons. Burn the town. BBEGs get to indulge all their fantasies, not just the socially acceptable ones. Sandbox or ***** tears, DM... sandbox or ***** tears.

[Stonehead]

In theory yeah, but in practice I've played in a few games with basically that same premise, and they weren't fantastic. The issue was that there was no visibility at all on what these ticking clocks were, how to stop them, or what the consequences of failure were. The campaign ended basically because we didn't search a specific dungeon in time, despite not knowing there was anything apart from treasure in there in the first place.

I assume you're asking this because you're planning such a campaign. I'm sure it could be fun. My advice is just that "The players can do whatever they want" is not a good excuse for not adding interesting hooks to the story. Nothing's worse than a game whose opening narration is "You all meet in a bar, what do you do?".

[Xervous]

In theory yeah, but in practice I've played in a few games with basically that same premise, and they weren't fantastic. The issue was that there was no visibility at all on what these ticking clocks were, how to stop them, or what the consequences of failure were. The campaign ended basically because we didn't search a specific dungeon in time, despite not knowing there was anything apart from treasure in there in the first place.

I assume you're asking this because you're planning such a campaign. I'm sure it could be fun. My advice is just that "The players can do whatever they want" is not a good excuse for not adding interesting hooks to the story. Nothing's worse than a game whose opening narration is "You all meet in a bar, what do you do?".

In my current campaign my players have two visible ticking clocks and are vaguely aware of progress on other clocks.

Big clock 1: the timing and locations for the coming eclipses. The players chose to engage with the first of three eclipses, managing to capture the BBEG of that arc at significant cost. Though they let the mcguffin slip away. They are ignoring the second eclipse because they rightly feel the NPCs in the region are prepared to handle it. The third one is a ways off so they aren’t thinking about it.

Then there’s the bard’s grafted arm which is set to expire in 46 days (as of this post) if they do not deliver special payment to the corpsecrafter. I’ve warned them a few times that there’s significant travel involved but they seem intent on squeezing in side errands. Ah well, the bard lost his arm once for failing what the muscle wizard’s player immediately termed a Hubris Test. Guess that makes the second time not so bad.

The party is aware of yet Gexians ramping up activity in the Reach but even with their empowered ship they’ve been hesitant to attack. They’ve gotten bits and pieces about a base being constructed but have not put much effort into investigating.

A few more clocks are ticking unseen, but nothing is a world ending threat. The players may be gravely disappointed about the changes that result to sections of the world, but it’s not like any of them lead to a game over screen.

[kyoryu]

This is pretty literally how Dungeon World and Apocalypse World set things up. DW, especially.

It works well. Maybe not for all players (it's obviously not going to work with a more planned/plotted story), but for a "scenario sandbox" it's pretty great.

[KorvinStarmast]

Unfortunately for D&D, the default assumption is "The GM tells you a story, except when you have to guess what's supposed to happen next before it continues, and you ocasionally roll dice for fights, which you will all win regardless of how you roll."

Not in any D&D I have played. Your post works well for 'beginner level video game' though.