Creighton Broadhurst wrote a good article about prepping for a session and the various areas that you should focus on.
When running a sandbox it is important to have materials that you can use on the fly to fill in any blanks that you did not have prepared in time. Raging Swan Press is the king at producing such works at present.
PCs want to go to the magic shop in a village you thought they would just walk through? No problem. Just flip open Urban Dressing and choose one of the sample small village shops with a sample inventory and present it to your players.
Here's a link to more info on some of their GM resources. In my opinion, if you own Urban Dressing, Dungeon Dressing and Wilderness Dressing, you are prepared for any type of sandbox situation. Creighton Broadhurst has been offering FREE PDFs of the aforementioned products in exchange for honest reviews.
When prepping a sandbox campaign I come up with the basic scenario of what's happening, who the factions are and what they want. Then I have the players make decisions of who they are and what they want. I have them figure out what is important to their characters and what they want to do. Then I know what exactly deserves my additional attention.
Have several books full of stat blocks, not just monsters, but humanoid npcs types as well. Things like bandits, knights, wandering wizards, etc.
When your creative juices are low, ask your players questions. Simple questions like:
Why do you trust (blank)?
Why doesn't (blank) trust you?
Who killed (blank)'s family?
You asked (blank) for help before, what went wrong?
Asking a leading question before the players meet an NPC helps throw in twists, adds some involvement from the players and reduces the creative load you have to bear.
Lastly, if the game starts to feel a little boring, or the players are going into an area you don't feel comfortable improvising, have ninjas attack. They don't have to be literal ninjas, but whatever bad guys are appropriate (bandits, goblins, invisible stalkers, sprites, etc). This works particularly well when getting semi-close to the end of the session. You can also follow up with some mysterious information, like a note carried by the bad guys that says the PC's are getting too close and to take them out.
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You are never fully prepared to run a sandbox-style game, but that's half the point. As far as city/town interactions go - focus on what the players enjoy, place everything else in the background.
Lastly, one tip that will help keep your sanity. Once you start the campaign, make sure to ask this one question at the end of each session: "What do you plan to do at the beginning of the next session?"
This will allow you to have at least a basic idea of the player's goals/ambitions and you can pseudo-plan accordingly.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Creighton Broadhurst wrote a good article about prepping for a session and the various areas that you should focus on.
When running a sandbox it is important to have materials that you can use on the fly to fill in any blanks that you did not have prepared in time. Raging Swan Press is the king at producing such works at present.
PCs want to go to the magic shop in a village you thought they would just walk through? No problem. Just flip open Urban Dressing and choose one of the sample small village shops with a sample inventory and present it to your players.
Here's a link to more info on some of their GM resources. In my opinion, if you own Urban Dressing, Dungeon Dressing and Wilderness Dressing, you are prepared for any type of sandbox situation. Creighton Broadhurst has been offering FREE PDFs of the aforementioned products in exchange for honest reviews.
I wholeheartedly agree Raging Swann is a go to DM resource. It has taken hours off of my prep time. I also use their 100% Crunch routinely. A wonderful variation to common foes.
You are never fully prepared to run a sandbox-style game, but that's half the point. As far as city/town interactions go - focus on what the players enjoy, place everything else in the background.
Lastly, one tip that will help keep your sanity. Once you start the campaign, make sure to ask this one question at the end of each session: "What do you plan to do at the beginning of the next session?"
This will allow you to have at least a basic idea of the player's goals/ambitions and you can pseudo-plan accordingly.
I'll second this. One thing you can usually count on is players avoiding content that you've prepared. You have to make important chunks modular so you can set them in regardless of which direction the party wanders off in.
I personally don't tend to actually design city/town layouts. I'll just describe what's there and ask the players what they'd like to accomplish.
I'll second this. One thing you can usually count on is players avoiding content that you've prepared. You have to make important chunks modular so you can set them in regardless of which direction the party wanders off in.
I personally don't tend to actually design city/town layouts. I'll just describe what's there and ask the players what they'd like to accomplish.
I do this very thing.