Open Ended Campaigns - Anyone Else Try?

Rather than follow an adventure path or module, I have run a couple campaigns where I have done very general preparation and then let the players run the story as much as I do. Many of my major plot decisions are on the spot, improvised reactions to what the players are doing. I don't set things up with a princess to save and the purpose of every single NPC to guide them to that end or the purpose of every monster to be an obstacle to rescuing the princess. I try to let the players explore where they will and I will often make up NPCs and plot twists on the fly. They can forget about the princess, hire a doppelganger to impersonate her for the reward money, or go do something else entirely. It's hard to do, but so far the feedback from players has been very positive, although I find not all players are suited to this (there is such a thing as too little direction for some players). I've had veteran players and completely new players, and I believe it can work regardless of player experience. But like I said, it's challenging, and I post this topic in hopes that I can gain more insight from other GMs who have done this or something similar. Example: I had the players start off as prisoners of monsters underground. They escaped, so that was a pretty straightforward goal I set for them, but after that they did their own thing. I gave them a map with nearby towns and cities and let them discuss between game sessions where they wanted to go and why. Did they want to go seeking adventure in taverns, become Pathfinders, or come up with a more metropolitan way of seeking fame and fortune. They decided they wanted to get into crime and seek money that way. They picked a city and started looking around for underworld contacts, and I gave them options and different ways to get into different organizations and to make different allies or enemies. Eventually the way things worked out is that the players were running their own branch and each of them had three characters. Each session they would pick one of their three to carry out different tasks. Sometimes they would pick from a list of possibilities I had generated for them, and sometimes they'd suggest their own ideas and I'd do my best to improvise on the run to make the story go that direction.

Moved to Off-Topic - Gauss

I started a game in similar manner. The whole group were started as shipwreck survivors on an unknown island. They had to scrounge weapons, some food, and start to explore the island. They already ran into natives and are doing a small quest for the natives. They've already gotten on the bad side of the village's witchdoctor or so they think (might be true or not) and are now attempting to purify a temple for the chieftain. Can't say to much as they read the forums also.

I'm trying to get a game going that is loosely based on D&D 4E, and the story literally writes itself the whole way through (or at least that's the hope). I tried running it tabletop with some friends of mine, but we could never meetup all the time. I have high hopes for it here though

Blaeringr said: But like I said, it's challenging, and I post this topic in hopes that I can gain more insight from other GMs who have done this or something similar. A sandbox campaign like you describe is pretty darn challenging to start up, but after the game hits a critical mass of preparation and player buy in it runs itself and winds up being the most rewarding type of campaign to GM. I do have two pieces of advice at least: Don't burn yourself out . If doing game prep isn't fun and/or it isn't necessary for next session, don't do it. Sure, Duke Snoozebutton has a family tree and a relationship map the size of Tacoma, but until it's important for the game, it doesn't need to be created. Love the random table. Find as many random tables as you can stomach - I particularly like Kevin Crawford's work through Red Tide, Other Dust and Stars Without Number - and use this to fill in any blank spots. A cool random result can turn the campaign on it's head (in a good way) through emergent gameplay. When both the GM and players don't know what they're about to get into, it turns into a special kind of session as both parties scramble and have to bring their respective "A" games. And a bonus one: Figure out what your players want. Some players love being asked what's over the next hill and will happily fill in details so they can contribute to the larger world beyond just being a player. Other players prefer just to play and let the GM create the world and have them run around in it. Find out before you either fill in all of the blank spots or put someone on the spot and wait for a response. From a player perspective, it helps to have a goal in mind for your character from the get go. Having something to fall back on when none of the hooks offered particularly appeal can help keep a game from floundering when the going gets rough.

Sorry about that, my chrome doesnt always agree with me. What i was saying was it sounds like great fun and i would love to play if you start one up please let me know.

I'm pretty much going to echo Dave D's comment above. Depending on what resources you're working with, Sandboxes can be easier to prep for than any plot-based game. The key is not to worry about detailing every little potential spot on the map or encounter. Players will miss them, so don't bother. Worry about the important stuff and use available resources for the rest.

"Story" is a byproduct of play. You create it simply by playing, it being a retelling of the events that transpired during the game. This is true of every RPG, plot-based or sandbox. Story is not created by anyone in particular or created before play (though plot may be). I won't say it's the "most rewarding" type of campaign to GM since this is subjective; however, I do agree with Dave D.'s tips to facilitate that style of game play. The key to creating and sustaining such a game involves the creation of metaplots , which are the things going on "around" the PCs - threats in the world pursuing their own goals and responding to the PCs action or inaction. There are many ways to do this, but the best I've found is the Front design of the *World games, which is entirely portable to any other game that doesn't already have such a system in place. Here is how Dungeon World handles it: Fronts/Dangers . One other thing to keep an eye out for is the quicksand box game. A lot of players don't like sandbox because it turns into a quagmire lacking any sort of meaningful action. This is often due to a lack of context and character goals (which often come from lack of context themselves). Collaboration and improvisation helps, but the GM is well advised to remember his agenda to fill the characters' lives with adventure. If the characters are sitting around not doing much, make something happen . Look to your metaplots for inspiration and then inject conflict that makes sense in context. As well, it's important to remember that RPGs are a conversation and that conversation is a fundamental loop: DM: "This thing is going on. What do you do?" PC: "We do X." DM: "Okay, when you do X, this other thing happens. What do you do?" If either party to that conversation fails to keep the conversation going in this manner, you may end up with sluggish, poorly-paced games and the quicksand box will follow. This leads to disengagement by the players and, if not corrected, the end of your game. Granted, this is an oversimplification of what the conversation looks like, but the point remains: The GM should be looking for the conflict in any situation, all the time. If there is no conflict to be had, end the scene before it drags and move on to a scene that does have conflict. The mechanics will come into play to resolve these conflicts depending on the game system you're using. "Conflict" by the way doesn't always mean "combat." Here's another good read that, in part, explains why sandbox games often see the PCs turn into roguish heroes or villains: Sandboxes and the Roguish Work Ethic .

I have played in a campaign like this (sandbox player agency)- it lasted for five years & was hands down the best ever. No module, adventure path, one shot, whatever will ever compare to or beat an open sandbox game where the players choose their own goals (adventure). Sure, the DM will have side adventures and reactions of NPCs/monsters to player's plans/goals, but the game is player driven. If you've never played in a sand box game that supports player agency than you are missing out on the best rpg's have to offer.

Strangely, I presented the argument in another thread recently that the most important thing for agency is buy-in on premise/becoming a stakeholder in the game. It doesn't require a fully-open world for players to be invested, IMHO. I bring this up because like everything else in the world, YMMV. Mortimus was in an obviously fantastic campaign, but that doesn't mean that all sanboxes are going to be created equally, nor does it mean that plotted gaming is any less valid.

Yes, buy-in is key. My post above assumed that the GM had obtained it and focused on specific approaches and pitfalls. I've played in sandboxes that were great and I've played in sandboxes that were terrible. Both had the players' buy-in on the premise, but in the terrible games, the GM executed it poorly. The most noticeable difference between the two approaches was scene-framing. The good sandboxes never just asked "What do you want to do?" They presented interesting situations that demanded attention right now and were related to the PCs' stated goals or things the players had indicated an interest in during the collaboration. Only then were the players asked "What do you want to do?" Without that sort of interesting context, you'll frequently see the players reaching for the only context they have, which are common tropes: shopping scenes, tavern scenes, "I'm a rogue so I go steal stuff," etc. Some people find those interesting, but I'm not one of them. To me they are a symptom of bad framing and pacing and in my experience end with a flaming tavern, dead town guards, and/or the PCs in prison. (You can set your watch by it.) This is exacerbated by GMs that engage in illusionism and decide outcomes for themselves rather than actually use the mechanics of the game. So, my advice as above is to always be thinking how you can inject conflict into the lives of the PCs. And use the actual mechanics to resolve things. When stuck, collaborate with the players. It's a shared creative space and it belongs to them, too.

For sandbox games, a term that I will admit was new to me until 30 seconds ago, I would agree with HJ that having rich context is key. The hands-down best way to ensure rich context is to play in a developed world that you as the GM are INTIMATELY familiar with. This will allow you to quickly and easily pull in plot points to entice PCs into action (out of the shopping scenes and whatnot). As an example, I'm INTIMATELY familiar with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I am running a campaign for my kids (teenagers) based in this world as a sandbox. Being familiar with the world (thanks to Robert Jordan's INCREDIBLY DETAILED writing style), I can pull in aspects from so many angles that I could literally keep this game going for years. If you try and run a sandbox without this level of intimate knowledge, you run the severe risk of the quicksand box or not knowing how to react when a player decides they'd like to explore beyond the edges of the map you've drawn - or travel to a town that you simply placed on the map because you thought a town should be there.

I did this almost exclusively for years. Paul S.'s note on prep is absolutely right. I will spend a very long time on environmental prep before the first session starts, to the point that I know what the social structures are, who the key figures are, what sort of conflicts are happening, etc. Past that, I try to limit my prep on details (major NPCs the party might encounter if they go thataway) since they might not ever come into play. I do the least prep on story arcs, since in a good sandbox you hand the players a bunch of stuff that points them in a certain direction, but you don't know how they'll get there or if they'll walk the other way. If they do go the other way, the NPCs and enemies I had all ready for them in the Tunnels of Inevitable Railroading can get used somewhere else, no big deal. The biggest problem I find when running this sort of game are too many directions. I find myself dropping a lot of clues that lead to very long term possibilities, which is good because it gives the party a target to go for, but bad because it's harder to walk from point A to point B without getting distracted. The players can get into a state of choice paralysis. When this happens, sometimes you need a bunch of ninjas to jump in through the window just to get momentum again.

All my games are like that... Altough my RL group don't like it that much (and in fact, it doesn't work for them, as they don't have much initiative and usually just say "ok, so I'll wait in the city until something comes up" and I have to create a campaign anyway... -.-), I always ran those kind of games in Play by Forum and in a brazillian program similar to roll20... Always had (except for RL... -.-) great responses from that, with player-based stories. I'm currently running one in roll20, and plan on starting a second one...

Good stuff. I've run both sandbox and non sandbox and sometimes it's good, sometimes a disaster on both counts lots of variables. Many times my fault, less so players that don't play the character they rolled, or do so in a way that's antithetical to the setup. Federation captain goes rogue, tries to steal this ship and kill the crew because he really wanted to play a 1600s pirate game, but was voted down, so he chucked the game setting. Or my recent Traveller games, my fault. I did have a good enough grasp of my setting before I launched it.

Some of my favorite campaigns I've both played in and run have been pure player-driven (meaning the GM creates and manages the world, and the players create the plotlines and story). I think a big part is having the right players for that style of game. If players have goals and then transmit that go-getter attitude to their characters it can work great, and you really only need one and the rest of the players can piggyback off those quests. If the rogue wants to eventually wants to be a big-shot in the underground community, his story can have a lot of progression as he builds contacts and performs jobs. If he simply wants to go around and do thiefy things and trickery, it can still work as long as another character has well-defined goals and goes out and talks with NPCs and plots how to accomplish them. If the fighter eventually wants to do a rags to riches story, and gain titles and lands. But doesn't go out of his way to join the militia or speak to the local baron, or do anything that might put him in an interesting situation. This can still work if the wizard seeks out quests and the fighter takes part in it; then he can still gain great renown and rewards and accomplish his goals. However, if none of your players enjoy a style with little direction, you probably need to change the game style and start handing them adventure hooks. Otherwise the entire campaign might be adventurers sitting in a tavern. Even if this style of game, sometimes my players will be out of ideas, and I will drop some adventurer hooks for them to keep the game interesting. Oftentimes a simple hook will inspire them and they will make their own plot hooks from there.

These days, I very much prefer an open, collaborative game, in which the players and I craft the world and the adventure together. It gets everyone bought in right up-front, rather than hoping for their buy-in. We still detail some short and long-term goals, so we can tell if we're moving anywhere.

I think that it all depends on your group (of course). My experience with GMing was a trial by fire. I ran a game for a group of friends that were all experienced role-players, and while I had spent wonderful amounts of time crafting a story for them to discover and follow, it was all thrown out the window in about 30 seconds when they thought outside the box and went in a direction I had never even conceived. That taught me the best rule of GMing: keep it loose. It's great to have a in depth plot and story that you want your players to get involved in, but you can't expect them to run the way you want them to. Being able to think on your feet (and make it look like you know what you are doing, that you expected them to do what they are doing) is the best way to run a campaign, keeping in mind the goals that your antagonists have set for themselves and keep them moving as well.

My GM is doing an open ended concept and I'm a big fan of world exploration so its a good match. I think OW can work but you need a player base that isn't into being led like a dog.