I sometimes find the conversation about sandboxs (and the Landmark style in TOR2e) just a bit divisive in tone.
Now my interpretation of "tone" is of course very subjective in text based messages in a forum, so this is very much my own feelings to what I am reading (VERY likely to be my mistake, I realise).
For all the experienced gamers who embrace the flexibility of what is called a sandbox approach, and confidently laud it as a "better way for them", there are several less confident requests regularly made for published campaigns with a clear trail to be followed.
Darkening of Mirkwood - to me - is just as easy to be called a sandbox as a railroad campaign. The many different entries in the tale of years take place all over Mirkwood and are effectively just as much a series of Landmarks as anything in TOR2e. The only difference is that the authors (wisely imho) provided a path from Landmark to Landmark, which gives a common thread for all gamers to use or ignore or shuffle as they wish.
I expect that Moria has lots of information in it - all great ideas from the writing team. But if it is presented as a sandbox of disconnected locations, this is not always the greatest help to first time gamers.
In TOR1e Tales from Wilderland - six stand alone stories where several could be threaded together - was a brilliant early sourcebook. And yet still incredibly simple to apply in the sandbox style if you have that confidence. Of course the MORIA book has been composed now, but if it had been filled in with a story, so what? Now that I am a more experienced gamer, I know how to corrupt the story made by an author who lays down a Railroad for me. I can make a sandbox by stripping out the connections that get in the way of my own ideas.
It would not harm any book if it was a campaign like DoM: and as an example would help other gamers start up. I'd like a mixture of sourcebook styles, to include examples of more directed stories - often such books actually illustrate the rules as intended in action.
Just my opinion of course.
Very well put, thank you for that.
Darkening of Mirkwood , for example and deservedly well praised, should not be considered a raillroady book destined for more novice Loremasters.
It contains a very balanced mix of open roads and detailed encounters which serve both to the sand-boxy approach and for the loremaster to use the detailed encounters as tools to enrich the campaign with wonderful ideas.
Any Loremaster who has already directed the campaign has experienced the capacity of the players to embark in unforeseen roads, roads that are supported by the proper official book material and which transform each campaign in an unique experience in the table.
But the book also supports the Loremaster in
specific scene details of how to use the tools at his/her disposal.
For example in
Heart of the wild there is extensive material regarding the
spider realm (where they are, who they are, what they seek). A very nice tool to have.
The Darkening of Mirkwood , on the other hand, shows the Loremaster how this tool can be used and what the outcome of this usage could be with wonderful ideas from the writers (which are the real added value of this kind of books) - the spiders react, think, feel, produce interesting plot twists...-
And that is why the
combination of both books -
Heart of the wild and
Darkening of Mirkwood- is so powerful: because one offer marvellous tools to be used and the other shows how can be used to full effect.
And the Loremaster dances between the two in order to produce that unique experience on the table.
What we fear regarding
Moria is a book which is 100% focused in high-value tools (= hypervitamined
Heart of the Wild) without the writer´s wonderful capacity to show us how to be used in detailed effect.
As a note I am not afraid to tackle a 100% tool book, I am directing a three year old 100% sandbox
Dracula Dossier campaign with very good results (Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan FTW). What I would sorely miss in
Moria book is the more detailed writer´s feedback on how these tools could be used to full effect in the Long Dark.