How do you create your sandbox campaign?

I'm just wondering how other GMs create their campaign. do you create a world first, then insert your players? Do your players unwittingly create your world for you? Currently I'm working on a world map, then a more in-depth local map for my players. I'm looking for tips/stategies to help this be an enjoyable experience for all involved.

We had this argument a while back and if this starts it up again it is on your head. You, by definition can't create a sandbox campaign, what you need to do is create a tableau that is conducive to ad lib on your part. I call mine a semi-demi-sandbox, because I like some detail to my world, but I want my players to at least have some degree of free will. Most of the map is going to be boring, and just letting them wander off in the hopes that they discover something that you have prepared for is going to end in you just shoving the evil genius' lair over 150 miles, so that something happens every few weeks. That having been said, assuming you are not running a "you just wandered off the farm" game, your characters will ostensibly have some background in the world and a shiny new career as a [fill in blank]. Make a small area that is highly detailed and has some links to the wider world, islands are great, they do not need an entire culture & history, and are great places to mix various elements in the early stages. As they find and overcome the local stuff you are working on the wider world, listening to what interests them as you go along and planting seeds to things you might want to do. At some point they will want to hire a horse/sailboat/spacecraft to take them off to [fill in blank]. If they go where you are not ready, and players can always instinctively find blank spaces on the map, you can either have a wind blow them to the area nearby that you have done, or use the familiar trope "here there be monsters", popular on the blank spaces on maps since time began. I give them a local map showing about a 300 mile radius, scale up or down as needed, and I start telling them stories about this place and that place. I entice them with treasure here and glory there push them with NPCs, pull them with shiny objects and they wander about happily smiting and slaying. Unless you can do whole coherent stories as you go along trying to do all ad lib is too much on you. Making a whole world is a lot of work and to do it well takes years, ask George R.R. Martin if you don't believe me. As I write locations I drop them onto the map and drop them into my rolling rumor file. proximity and persistence pay off with better and better rumors and eventually they go and investigate. I have been known to move a castle where it needs to be rather than where I wrote it. I also string overarching plot lines across the map, the evil [fill in blank] wants to control the [fill in blank] at the peril to [fill in blank] a civil war always brings out the best in people, so use them frequently, if Earth History is any sort of guide, you can almost always start a civil war easier than you can plan a pie eating contest. Usurpers, pretenders, kings and kingpins are the mother's milk of adventure. So don't go crazy trying to get it all right, you can't possibly get it all right, work toward getting a cushion of three to five decent scenarios and watch and listen to your victims, um players and it will write itself after a while. I find one of the best maps and cultural guides is Earth, with elves/vampires/zombies/little green furry guys etc. will give you the most bang for the buck. Where else could some of the absurd things that have happened, happen?

I use the only world map I'll ever need . Then I use any generic medieval city map . And I populate a few generic location pages: Some trees Some buildings Some dungeon tiles Then I stick some tokens on the world map and move them around to reflect troop movements. I roll some dice to see which way the battles go. Everything else gets improvised.

Hey al, hit Enter a few times, would ya? That's really hard to read.

Love the isometric dungeon tiles Plex, wish I had isometric views for everything though.

Thanks. I'm working on more sets.

(didn't realize I would make such a long post..again I get rambling and just long winded) I do it in a "top down" approach a lot like al e. also. mixed with the 'butterfly effect' for the world. I make the world/larger area map, detailing the area they start in and fleshing that out. The rest of the map I make generalizations of what/who is going on there, major NPC people involved, just a sentence or 2 that i can keep track of as time goes on, without getting too much detail to bog me down (sort of the 'back cover' blurb on a novel giving you an idea of the book). I then setup some sort of initial push that they can bite onto to get the ball rolling of where they started at .After that its freeform on what they do, how they do it, and where they go to deal with, or try to work out whatever storyline they make. Like the town north of them my have "Small town, slowly being overrun and strong fisted into submission by a local mercenary group wanting to gain power the villagers want to rid the town of them" and just update the notes for it weekly with a small blurb of what happened during the passage of time. The world changes and goes on if they are there or not..if they show up, they get whatever state it is currently in. And no town/city is an island, they all have relations/conflicts/dealing with other local towns so players always can find something they can want to bite onto to keep on the move around the map. I strengthen the storylines they engage in, fleshing it out on the map and details of that area based on what they did with cause/effect. I then Think of ways that "they did X here, which changes the course of the happenings, so an effect of that is Y now in this other town alters course". and add a few words to my town notes. (all my towns on the map are tokens on the map layer I can add to the GM notes on). Did they find the town X of strongarm mercs? did the help the people? If so, the mercs are based over in town Y (from my notes)..and they aren't happy about this group of random people messing with their business..depending on how they handled it. (did they negotiate? did they fight them off?) I let the 'butterfly effect' kick in and note it on town Ys notes. Every major action of the players has an effect, even if they don't see it as such. One example of how I use butterfly effect to make stories off just a sentence and their actions upon it is they did what they though was a simple trade of items. They needed a vehicle, they stop at a small town and find a farmer with an old flatbed truck that runs. They offer to trade a plasma cannon and some tech armor for the truck (its all they had worth giving up). the man was doubtful as hes never seen one before (its a lowtech farm town) until they demonstrate it vaporizing a tree with one shot, and no amount of conventional pistol/rifle shots hurt the armor. They convince him its amazing for hunting wild game. The man happily agrees as this is a 'high tech futuristic gadget' to him.They move on thinking nothing of it, that it was just some random village they though I setup to get them a vehicle. In my notes I had " small low tech farming village where the guy with the truck and in door plumbing is the 'fancy' guy of the town, and he has dreams of power and something more of life". So a few months later they pass thru, forgetting all about it. to find out hes taken this plasma cannon, declared himself king of this village, and forcing the people to wage war in his name of neighboring villages using his "god gun" to wipe out dozens of people that appose him at a time. They feel responsible and now have a new story they can or cannot try to work out how to deal with. None of it was planned, or expected. 2 sessions of situations all came from the players actions, and a small sentence explaining what the village was about and I ran with it based on what they players did, fleshing out the cause/effect of their actions. I try to do it in the old "hands off god" approach I guess. I setup the world, filling in details of 'vague moving storylines' of the world as a whole ,and basic local tales, give it all a kick to get it spinning, and let the players make their own story which by group agreements pick where/when/how they go places. All making storyline that get more complex for them just because of them interacting with this world. There is no pre designed storylines, or deep plots (until they encounter a snippet of notes I have that they are interested in), or even planning ahead of where they will go, or what they 'need' to do. I give them a box of legos, what they build with it, and what pieces they want to build it with its their choice, even if they dont know what they final built thing will be. Note: keep in mind not all players like this style so make sure they are onboard beforehand. Most my group is friends I've known a long time, and my son and his friends and know to expect it. Its been hit or miss on randoms we found from Roll20. Some enjoyed it a lot, some felt lost and confused without a hard lined, well defined module like storyline to follow. (not that they was bad players, quite the opposite..just they play with the "GMs job is to give us a storyline" style). Some of them liked the freedom of choice on what to do, while the others felt hopeless on what "I expected them to do" because they had no well outlined and obvious 'story arch' to complete. Just keep that in mind. Both are perfectly fine playstyles. Just they don't seem to mix well as far as player styles when trying to do the other as GM.

Thanks for the replies guys, I've spent a lot of time GMing, but have yet to have a long running sandbox game, which is my goal here. What do you guys use to organize your notes/pages in roll20? Seems like I am already getting incredibly scattered.

I have a large folder in my Google Drive for all things pertaining to my campaign.

Calle A. said: I have a large folder in my Google Drive for all things pertaining to my campaign. This.

I take or make a big hex map, then customize some of the mass of random tables I have. Other than that I use a regional building system, like Red Tide, Echo Resounding to put together some specific power structures, locations of interest, etc. The hardest part (for me) is actually deciding to start playing. Other than that, keeping good notes is important.

This is just a graph for travel hours between systems. Its my most favorite map. Beyond that, I just have them do what they want. (well after the first few sessions to get everything rolling)