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[WARNING LONG] - So I have been running sandbox games for several years now. Out of my gaming group, my games tend to be the ones of any success. By success I mean running for a while, everyone having fun while doing it, and the game coming to a fun ending. (not to say my friends games are not any fun)... I've made some mistakes, tried new things, and made improvements on my game. Recently, one of my friends attempted to run a sandbox game. He asked me for help, and he listened to the "WHAT", but not "HOW" or "WHY". Recently, his game came to abrupt end when 4 players dropped (out of 5). Not including the 2 or 3 that dropped before I came into the scene. In light of that, I want to help you guys avoid "Game Killers" of running a sandbox game.
1 - Do not tailor the game to the players or their characters. Players should be encouraged to play whatever they want. If they come to an obstacle they cannot overcome, let them fail or come back to it later. This will influence players to be more well rounded in their character creation, or at least as a group.
2 - DO NOT ASSUME ANYTHING, EVER! I cannot stress this enough. DO NOT require a skill check [OR ANY TYPE OF ROLL] to move the story/plot/mission/quest further. If the players need to find a clue to move on, they simply find it. If not, then call for a skill check. Lets use the locked door as an example. The 3 obvious choices are lockpick (if able), bash (if able), find keys (if able). If there is a possibility they could fail all 3, it should not be required to get through that door. Instead, the door should have something else behind it that helps the players if they do succeed. Such as a shortcut, treasure, or possible just an empty room (whatever the situation calls for).
3 - The 3 clue rule. When planing a mission/quest/adventure, always try to leave at least THREE (3) possible conclusions to said mission/quest/adventure or 3 clues to solve it. If the players feel/look like they are getting stuck, or are bored, or lost, give them clues. For example, I had a player get stuck trying to move through the sewer under a ruined city. Climbing up and moving through the city was always an option (a dangerous option, but an option). Never assume the players have a particular skill or a particular skill high enough (or roll high enough) to accomplish anything (see above).
4 - Be FAIR. This doesn't mean what you think it means. It means, in a TRUE sandbox game, if a character gets killed by a goblin, the character gets killed. If they fail a save, they fail. If they succeed, THEY SUCCEED. Plain and simple, whatever the outcome maybe, move on.
5 - Do NOT become attached to anything! When fleshing out your world, do not become attached to it. I know this can be difficult, especially for your NPCs you worked so hard to be cool. But here's the truth. They ARE NOT COOL. No NPC can, will be, or should be cool EVER. I use a rule of thumb that if you think the players will like an NPC, the players will try and kill them. And you need to be fine with that, and allow it to happen (because it will). This includes NPCs, locations, items, and even plot-lines. That's right, quests. Your players will hate your quest you spent 5 hours on, and love the one you spent 5 minutes on. This leads me to my next point...
6 - 10 Minute Rule. When planing a mission/quest/adventure/anything (except the world), do not spend more than 5 to 10 minutes on it. Jot down a few bullet points, important names, 3 clues, reward...and DONE. That it. Trust me, your players wont even realize.
7 - The WORLD. This is the ONLY exception to the above rule. Spend days, weeks, or even months planing the world. Create towns, cities, economy, factions, companies, governments, gangs/criminals, guilds, schools, religions, magic, and the meta-physics of your world/universe. The one thing that makes any sandbox game work is a world for your players to explore, become immersed in, and do stuff in. So, after you have a world (or a small piece of it) fleshed out, plan plenty of things for your players to do in it; and expect for about 1/3 of it to NEVER get used. See rule 6 above. I recommend creating about 10 to 20 missions for your players to pick and choose what they want to do. If the players come up with their own thing...roll/role with it.
In the end, NEVER say no. Says yes, asked for a roll/role, and decide the outcome. Sometimes players may want to do things or ask for things they cannot do or have yet...that's fine; just tell them "not yet".
A few more pieces of advice. Keep DC's low, use NPC classes ALOT, do not overuse Core classes, keep treasure rewards low but frequent, give players plenty of options, and above all BE CLEAR WITH YOUR PLAYERS, BOTH AHEAD OF TIME AND DURING THE GAME!
I'm interested in any feedback you guys have, or pieces of advice you have from times you've run sandbox/open ended games.
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Good stuff!
Sounds like you read the Alexandrian (or at least heard about the three clue rule from a similar source). For those that want a longer essay on this critical rule, check it out here.
With regards to creating the world, a great article I read was about a design method, the "Slaughterhouse" (named after the designer's dungeon he was creating). It's a great way to give a sandbox game a living feel with your planning. Click here for the link.
Lastly, a little bit of advice that I gave my brother who was doing his own sort of sandboxy game, was to go with the flow and be ready to wing-it. The best tool in your arsenal for when your players blindside you, is the chart: Monster Statistics by CR.
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Good stuff!
Sounds like you read the Alexandrian (or at least heard about the three clue rule from a similar source). For those that want a longer essay on this critical rule, check it out here.
With regards to creating the world, a great article I read was about a design method, the "Slaughterhouse" (named after the designer's dungeon he was creating). It's a great way to give a sandbox game a living feel with your planning. Click here for the link.
Lastly, a little bit of advice that I gave my brother who was doing his own sort of sandboxy game, was to go with the flow and be ready to wing-it. The best tool in your arsenal for when your players blindside you, is the chart: Monster Statistics by CR.
I did read some of Alexandrian stuff! Great stuff in there.
I'm going to give that Slaughterhouse stuff a read when I get back (off to an interview ATM).
...and yes. Actually I literally use the PRPG website EVERY SINGLE SESSION I run. That website is countless useful. My endless resources of material come from these great resources as well...
http://donjon.bin.sh/ (fantastic sight. I use the pickpocket generator all the time)
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-magi.php (this website has tons of generators, check them out)
http://www.dunknet.net/pathfinder.aspx
http://mcmustard.com/pf_items.html#
http://pathfinder-treasure-generator.com/
http://www.mathemagician.net/Town.html (this one is ridiculous)
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I would add in building a toolbox that you can pull from. Have something to quickly pull traps, NPCs, monsters, treasure, plot hooks, or anything from. This is mostly going to take experience and time to build, but starting to build one will help.
How do I build mine? When I come across something I think would be good to use one day I either make a note of where I could find it again (if it is in a book I own,) or I copy it down and put it in a notebook or computer file. I use the app Evernote, which helps me access these notes on my laptop and iPad.
As I need something, I can quickly look at my notes, find something useable, and quickly adapt it to my needs.
I did this with a trapped room once. I found a trap, a puzzle, and stats for a heavy stone door and added them together on the spot to create a trap encounter the group never forgot.
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2 - DO NOT ASSUME ANYTHING, EVER! I cannot stress this enough. DO NOT require a skill check [OR ANY TYPE OF ROLL] to move the story/plot/mission/quest further. If the players need to find a clue to move on, they simply find it. If not, then call for a skill check. Lets use the locked door as an example. The 3 obvious choices are lockpick (if able), bash (if able), find keys (if able). If there is a possibility they could fail all 3, it should not be required to get through that door. Instead, the door should have something else behind it that helps the players if they do succeed. Such as a shortcut, treasure, or possible just an empty room (whatever the situation calls for).
To expand on this one a bit...
It is ok to make an obstacle like a locked door.
It is ok to have a few ideas about how the players can get past it, bash, pick, find keys.
I would go so far as to say it is ok if this door is a critical obstacle, IE the players have to get past it, or they fail the current mission.
What is not ok is making your ideas into hard rules. IE this door can only be bypassed with bash, pick, or finding the keys. Be open to any and all methods the players might come up with to get past the door, and be fair about giving them some chance of success.
As for 7, 7 is extremely important for adjudicating my expansion on 2. If the players decide that the best way to deal with a small orc invasion is by rallying and training a couple villages worth of peasants into a small army, you will need to know how the Lord of the Land is going to react to a someone raising and equipping a small army from his vassals.
Nice stuff. I agree on most everything except the door example. Lets say the BBEG hiddes in a chamber behind a big door and the party fails to open it one way or another ... then they have to get creativ. Use the table in the other room as a ram, use acid fasks or just use the weapon to harm the door ... i will never use a door that can't be bashed to pices or overcome in some creativ way .. but if the party fails to open the door with skills the BBEG will have some time to buff while the party uses a longer creativ way to open the door ;)
Skills should you have should allways give you an advantage. Skills that the party has not should give an disadvantage. But missing skills (in this case lockpicking) should never result in the party autofails a mission.
Breiti
Mostly good.
I disagree with 1, 5, and parts of 7...
RE: 1: Somethings SHOULD be tailored to characters, especially if you have players that are a bit more "glory hounds" to allow other players to shine.
RE: 5: I've found that when you have completely boring NPCs, no PC wants to have anything to do with them and this kills groups who are all about the roleplaying and less about the murder-its-face-whats-it-got?'ing. That said, I think what you may have been trying to say is to remember that the focus of the game should be on the PCs, which I would agree with.
RE: 7: the "never say no" part I would vehemently disagree with. Sometimes players want things that completely kill the mood / atomosphere because they're in an odd mood and what they are after has nothing to do with your game world. If you're running a 1920's horror themed game, Yukka-Yukyuk the living cartoon from Teddy Bears of ToonTown™ isn't going to be a good fit.
"No" is one of the best words in the English language. Use it. Love it. Make it breakfast the next morning.
-TimD
1 - Do not tailor the game to the players or their characters. Players should be encouraged to play whatever they want. If they come to an obstacle they cannot overcome, let them fail or come back to it later. This will influence players to be more well rounded in their character creation, or at least as a group.
If you don't tailor the game to the players and characters, they're likely not going to enjoy it.
If everybody wants to play a different person in the Ocean's 11 crew, don't build the game as a sandbox dungeon crawl with straight up fights in every room.
Now I'm not saying you should tailor each and every encounter to exactly need each character's strengths in tandem to work, because there's too little margin for error there.
But DEFINITELY mold the game scenarios with your players and characters in mind. They'll have more fun and you'll be less frustrated trying to fit their square peg into your round hole.
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I'm actually somewhat on the side of not tailoring the game too tightly. Let me explain what I mean by that;
* If your players want lots of combat, sure, put combat in the game. Or let them try to solve things with combat. Don't ignore the players' style entirely.
* But on the other hand, don't put in only challenges that the party can actually handle. Put in stuff they can't handle as well; if time comes to make a new character, that can be an opportunity to access some sectors of the sandbox that were previously impossible to crack.
For example, the original party doesn't have a cleric. So there's an area with lots of level-draining undead and stuff like that; very nasty if your party doesn't have a cleric.
Then a player's character dies, or a new players joins, or someone retires a character to try something new. Now there's an opportunity to add new competencies to the party, so that they can access parts of the sandbox they previously couldn't handle.
And undead aren't the only example; there might be thick woods where a druid is very useful; or a desert that's hard to cross without someone who can conjure food and water. The capital city might be a difficult environment if you don't have a diplomancer of some sort.
Maybe adding a dwarf to the all-human party opens up adventures in the ancestral dwarven lands; without their chaperone-dwarf they'd get harassed by the locals (with big axes).
If you'd tailored the campaign tightly to the characters, when a PC leaves, there's a big niche falling empty, and there's not a lot to do for very different types of PCs. The new PC is under big pressure to pick up the role of the old PC. "If the cleric dies, we need a new cleric."
Loose tailoring means that the PCs won't be able to go everywhere; but a change in party means some areas become harder and others become easier or even possible. And there's more room to change to very different characters if a PC dies or leaves.
An important aspect in this, is that you kind of spread around the different things needed/useful around the sandbox. Maybe the level-draining undead are rarely found outside sectors #2 and #7. #4 is the high elf supremacist area. So a party without cleric can still hang out in sectors 1, 3, maybe 4, 5 and 6. Adding an elf makes you more welcome in #4. And so on.
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I'm actually somewhat on the side of not tailoring the game too tightly. Let me explain what I mean by that;
* If your players want lots of combat, sure, put combat in the game. Or let them try to solve things with combat. Don't ignore the players' style entirely.
* But on the other hand, don't put in only challenges that the party can actually handle. Put in stuff they can't handle as well; if time comes to make a new character, that can be an opportunity to access some sectors of the sandbox that were previously impossible to crack.
For example, the original party doesn't have a cleric. So there's an area with lots of level-draining undead and stuff like that; very nasty if your party doesn't have a cleric.
Then a player's character dies, or a new players joins, or someone retires a character to try something new. Now there's an opportunity to add new competencies to the party, so that they can access parts of the sandbox they previously couldn't handle.
And undead aren't the only example; there might be thick woods where a druid is very useful; or a desert that's hard to cross without someone who can conjure food and water. The capital city might be a difficult environment if you don't have a diplomancer of some sort.
Maybe adding a dwarf to the all-human party opens up adventures in the ancestral dwarven lands; without their chaperone-dwarf they'd get harassed by the locals (with big axes).
If you'd tailored the campaign tightly to the characters, when a PC leaves, there's a big niche falling empty, and there's not a lot to do for very different types of PCs. The new PC is under big pressure to pick up the role of the old PC. "If the cleric dies, we need a new cleric."
Loose tailoring means that the PCs won't be able to go everywhere; but a change in party means some areas become harder and others become easier or even possible. And there's more room to change to very different characters if a PC dies or leaves.
An important aspect in this, is that you kind of spread around the...
THIS...this exactly. I'm not saying a tailor made game is wrong or not fun. What I am saying is it's not HOW you run a sandbox/open ended game. What you said Ascalaphus & thejeff hits the nail right on the head. You don't tailor a game to your players; you write your material and then let them choose what they like.
Real-world example: Skyrim or Fallout wasn't tailor designed with my interests in mind, but I love the games anyways. In fact, they are my favorite games. There are certain aspects of the game I might choose to ignore because of the type of character I'm playing. If I'm playing a good, heroic character I'm not going to join the Dark Brotherhood (in fact, I killed them), but I do (and did) join them with my evil character.
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I've been in one very good sandbox campaign; it fit these points pretty well. But there was one other thing worth noting: the fractal nature of the world.
Any part of the setting you pay attention to, gets more development. You've never seen it completely; time to move, on, 100% completion. Doesn't work that way.
If you go after the orcs to figure out what they're up to, they will be up to something. Possibly important. On the way, you find some idols from foreign gods, for a land to the north. So you go on a sidequest to figure out what's going on there, "just a quick look", but it turns out there's much more going on there, too.
As a consequence, this means a GM should be careful to avoid introducing any plots that are Too Big To Ignore, or at least, make those solvable. If you cut down the root of the xenofungus vine in the ziggurat in the orc capital, you've shut down orc expansion for a while. The story with the orcs isn't over - there'll still be stuff happening if you go there. But you can go elsewhere too.
How can this go wrong? By introducing a plot the PCs can't ignore, and it won't resolve either. Whenever you peel back a layer of the orc plot, there's something even bigger and worse going on. You will NEVER have the time to investigate those idols from the north country.
Orthodox sandbox is not supposed to have a metaplot; personally I don't mind a bit of metaplot, but it should flare up occasionally, then go back to sleep for a while. It's important that most adventures in a sandbox campaign are not connected to the metaplot, and not connected to each other; if you travel West for a few days, you end up in a different story, rather than the same story that's been after you for the last three adventures.
In my thread about my sandbox game I am getting bashed by forum members for actually doing #1. Though, I do agree with it full heartedly.
I'm not so sure about the three clues rule and how well I follow it, when my players get lost I have them roll a Gather Information (diplomacy) check to see if they can find out any information on major events or news in town that could lead them forward. We also use taverns like news posts, if you need to know something, usually there's someone in the tavern who can help you get from point A to point B, even if there are a few subpoints in between.
There is only one exception to #2 that I can think of, and that is the player's are going to want things. I use that as a motivator, since no one I know likes to play good characters and do good for the sake of good, everyone is out for some reward, so I cannot plan missions that do not have rewards.
Number 4 is obvious, the more you let your players get out of failing things or let them win anyway the more they expect special treatment on a regular basis.
I have an odd mix of number 5 and 6. I spend very little time coming up with intricate plots for my players to quest through for sure. And most of the bad guys I throw at them come straight out of the Bestiary. Usually I have 3 types of bad guys:
1) Weakling straight from the book
2) Augmented bad guys that just have HD added on to the ones from the book
3) Boss, designed to be NPC with PC class levels
And I don't spend a lot of time designing (meaning mapping) the major cities, as it would take FOR-EVER, and forcing my players to take that much time just to walk around town when I know where they wanna go is kinda crappy. Usually, they can either roll a Knowledge(local) or find an NPC who can give them directions in game, and they can just go where they need to go. I usually just describe the city, rather than draw it out.
E.G. the major city of my campaign is divided into 5 districts, one for each compass direction, and the central district. Each one has a different focus, and different NPCs who would take them on different quests.
From here I have slight conflict with #1 because I have 2 or more different quests planned out coming from 2 completely different parts of town. Basically I just adjust the HD of bad guys to match my players and keep the core concepts of the encounter exactly the same, but it is different than your guide.
I also spend time on my individual quests, mapping out dungeons, and it takes me more than 10 minutes to do that. Does that mean I'm doing it wrong?
As for number 7, my answer is always "you have to figure out HOW to get it."
Overall good read, short, concise, and to the point.
What is a sandbox game?
What is a sandbox game?
Compare it to a Grand Theft Auto game world, where you have plenty of choices of what to do, and can pick and choose freely at what quests you will partake in. As opposed to most adventure paths that have clear objectives and expectations.
I had an idea for starting a sandbox game like this:
Ask the players what type of thing they want their characters to be doing. They're pirates, archaeologists, bounty hunters, thieves, rebels, mercenaries, detectives. Find a concept they can agree on.
Then develop the gameworld with this concept in mind. There's no point in designing a vast underground cave network if they'd have no interest in exploring it. Meanwhile, the players can create their characters with the theme of the campaign in mind.
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What is a sandbox game?
A couple of things define sandbox for me:
1) PC-driven, not plot-driven; the GM sets out a setting, like a sort of adventure buffet; the players pick a direction that looks interesting to them. There's very little pushing and prodding the PCs to go on particular quests, and if they'd rather do something else, they can. The initiative to pick a direction is in the players' hands, they're not following an "adventure path".
2) The world isn't quite as neatly shaped to fit the PCs current abilities. Rather, the world's been sketched out beforehand, as if the PCs didn't exist; some monsters go here, others go there. Then the PCs are introduced. An important consequence is that PCs can wander into areas they can't handle; some areas have high-CR monsters right from the start. Compare to classical game where high-CR monsters rarely show up until the PCs are high-level. This means the PCs need to be careful because it's quite possible to meet monsters they can't cope with (yet).
I mean it all seems like common sense when you read it, but aren't the simplest things the easiest to overlook or take for granted? Its good to be reminded, especially when you think you've been doing it for too long to bother with basics. Thanks for the interesting read.
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The most important rule:
Make sure your players want a sandbox game, and are ready for it.
I spent months on one, once...started it up...got the PCs together...described the dramatic entry into my beautiful city...and all the players looked at me and said, "Ok, what do we do now?".
"Whatever you...your characters want to do."
Silence. People look at each other, then back at me. "What are we supposed to be doing?"
I almost cried.
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Some gamers just aren't sandbox material.I hope that's a distinction of style rather than quality.
Ummm...well...they were ok, as long as I led them by the nose, and constantly reminded them of their characters' abilities...
...and these guys had been gaming for a minimum of 2 years. *sob*
One did finally improve, and even learned to GM a bit. The rest...I dunno.
I agree. I would love to run a sandbox game with my players, but I'm afraid they won't bite. They are puzzle solvers, and love it when I give them problems - but they don't seek them out.
Your guys and my guys should get together and write a book entitled "How to break a sandbox".
The group I run is new to me (found through these boards!) so the first couple sessions I ran I railroaded. Even though we're all seasoned vets I figured it was the best way to get to know one another.
In the feedback from the sessions they said they wanted non-linear gaming and described their last game ranging all over the game world. I FOOLISHLY confused non-linear w/my idea of "sandbox". We played some downtime through a Play-by-Post session, in which I threw out 6 different plot hooks (on top of the 4 built into their characters). So we sit down at the table, I review the PBP and set the scene and...
Deer in the headlights
Finally after losing one guy to his phone I had the GM NPC do something I am loathe to do - I had her sit with the PCs, at a bar, literally laying out all the options. I even wrote the hooks on note cards and sift through them. Finally they picked one after an hour and then afterwards I got some negative feedback that they needed at least a few boundaries and directions.
We've stuck it out and found a rhythm but man; those first few months were touchy. Needless to say...non-linear doesn't mean sandbox exactly.
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I agree. I would love to run a sandbox game with my players, but I'm afraid they won't bite. They are puzzle solvers, and love it when I give them problems - but they don't seek them out.Your guys and my guys should get together and write a book entitled "How to break a sandbox".
The group I run is new to me (found through these boards!) so the first couple sessions I ran I railroaded. Even though we're all seasoned vets I figured it was the best way to get to know one another.
In the feedback from the sessions they said they wanted non-linear gaming and described their last game ranging all over the game world. I FOOLISHLY confused non-linear w/my idea of "sandbox". We played some downtime through a Play-by-Post session, in which I threw out 6 different plot hooks (on top of the 4 built into their characters). So we sit down at the table, I review the PBP and set the scene and...
Deer in the headlights
Finally after losing one guy to his phone I had the GM NPC do something I am loathe to do - I had her sit with the PCs, at a bar, literally laying out all the options. I even wrote the hooks on note cards and sift through them. Finally they picked one after an hour and then afterwards I got some negative feedback that they needed at least a few boundaries and directions.
We've stuck it out and found a rhythm but man; those first few months were touchy. Needless to say...non-linear doesn't mean sandbox exactly.
Yeah...and might mean different things, in different groups. What, exactly, did it mean to them, if you don't mind?
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The most important rule:
Make sure your players want a sandbox game, and are ready for it.
Some gamers just aren't sandbox material.I hope that's a distinction of style rather than quality.
It's also the mindset you bring to the table; with the same people I've played sandbox campaigns that worked, linear campaigns that worked, and sandbox-y campaigns that fell flat.
How does this work out in practice? Are sandbox games really just a long series of missions for hire or adventurers out raiding dungeons for the loot? What am I missing?
Thejeff,
My experience is that once you get them going initially, they'll supply their own motivations to continue.
Motivated characters are key. In the successful game, at first our motivations were indeed to just be successful, make a name for ourselves and all that. At some point we stumbled across some weird orc activity that had us worried; we went about collecting information, journeying to consult sages and mystics. Eventually we infiltrated/stormed the orc stronghold and put a stop to it.
In the process we'd discovered all sorts of other interesting things. We've gone after some of them for the money (a cave with little shop of horrors plants - teeth the size of pocketbooks, worth good money for the ivory), and some for curiosity (what's in the north?), and some for religious reasons (the idols are of evil gods - no wait, they're not real gods, they're more like high-tech aliens - we're gonna crash Heaven into the volcano it's built on...)
So motivation is key.
In other campaigns, we've had slumps because characters had no clear motivations; the GM was waiting for us to start doing stuff, we were waiting for plot to happen to us and the whole thing wasn't great.
Maybe it's good to have a talk with the players, clearly establish that the initiative will be theirs, and that they should be making characters that actually want something.
Seriously; a significant step in character design needs to be coming up with some starting motivations. You can't skip over this part, even if players are dragging their feet - no sandbox without motivated characters.
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The most important rule:
Make sure your players want a sandbox game, and are ready for it.
Some gamers just aren't sandbox material.I hope that's a distinction of style rather than quality.It's also the mindset you bring to the table; with the same people I've played sandbox campaigns that worked, linear campaigns that worked, and sandbox-y campaigns that fell flat.
How does this work out in practice? Are sandbox games really just a long series of missions for hire or adventurers out raiding dungeons for the loot? What am I missing?
Thejeff,
My experience is that once you get them going initially, they'll supply their own motivations to continue.Motivated characters are key. In the successful game, at first our motivations were indeed to just be successful, make a name for ourselves and all that. At some point we stumbled across some weird orc activity that had us worried; we went about collecting information, journeying to consult sages and mystics. Eventually we infiltrated/stormed the orc stronghold and put a stop to it.
In the process we'd discovered all sorts of other interesting things. We've gone after some of them for the money (a cave with little shop of horrors plants - teeth the size of pocketbooks, worth good money for the ivory), and some for curiosity (what's in the north?), and some for religious reasons (the idols are of evil gods - no wait, they're not real gods, they're more like high-tech aliens - we're gonna crash Heaven into the volcano it's built on...)
So motivation is key.
In other campaigns, we've had slumps because characters had no clear motivations; the GM was waiting for us to start doing stuff, we were waiting for plot to happen to us and the whole thing wasn't great.
Maybe it's good to have a talk with the players, clearly establish that the initiative will be theirs, and that they should be making characters...
Sure. The issue was one I hadn't realized, at the time...when I ran a game, it was ALWAYS one player that pushed the game along. I heard no end of b++**ing and moaning that the game was always about him, so I'd highlight another character, and the player would look at me, dumbfounded.
He wasn't there, for this game. I can't remember why. He was always top-notch, and when he ran, I played.
Oddly, the exact same sort of thing happened one time when he ran a game and I played a character meant to stay out of the spotlight. My character was a woodsman...an overgrown 15 year-old kid. When the player of the esteemed paladin looked over at me and asked, "so, what are we gonna do?", it really dawned on me...they simply were followers...none of them had any understanding of how to accomplish anything on their own. Well, it was around then that the one guy woke up...a few months later, he was vastly improved...and not long after that, he ran a game. Not bad for a new GM, either.
I don't run my campaigns explicitly as either a sandbox or plot-driven path because I don't believe it's a simple dichotomy. There are overarching plots that are present with hooks aplenty, but otherwise the characters have free run of the world.
Motivation is key. Obviously it has to be something the whole group has an interest in. The easiest way to establish my campaigns is the impetus for the group to be together in the first place. I don't have groups of wandering adventures, but a driving force that is a call to adventure. The players can choose to do with that what they will.
I've had success with both new and experienced players. It's a lot of work of course to make everything fair game, but I've been able to work out how much is necessary to give my players the level of freedom they want. I have been fortunate enough to have a group that is understanding of the work involved, so they make game-changing decisions towards the end of the session.
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Something about motivated characters: some people are just good at this. Their characters always have motivations; if they have the slightest clue about what the campaign is about they'll fit right in. Other people need a bit more help to get started.
Many people have a hard time moving beyond "get rich" or "level up" as motivations. I think some of these are helpful for them:
* Setting description; what's going on in the setting? What are the conflicts in the setting? If you can pick sides for or against something in the setting, that helps in finding a motivation. (Promote this god. Fight that race. Stop injustice. End slavery. Avenge your clan.)
* A list of sample motivations: ideas to get people started. Not meant to be an exhaustive list or menu, but if people want to take some of those suggestions instead of developing their own ideas, good enough.
* A push in the right direction. You actually need to ask people what their PC's motivation is. It's not enough to know what a PC is capable of or where he's come from; you need to know where he wants to go. Ask the player to formulate one long-term and one short-term goal. More is allowed, but this is the required minimum.
While this probably applies to sandboxing (or might be a definition of it), I don't think most of it is neccessary for opn ended games in general.
Read the Alexandrian blog. All of it, but esp. the one on encounter design (dont tailor the EL if sand boxing but don't be afraid to use many low CR encounters too), the importance of wandering monster tables, hex crawling (for reuse of material, minimal prep and understanding the basic underpinnings of D&D), and (advanced) node based design.
Also interesting: ars ludi West Marches campaign articles.
Toolbox books and sites will help you. And there are a few sandboxy adventures/settings available though you can of course use non sandboxy ones too.
A few notable books: D20 Toolbox (3e, cheap, lots of charts) , Ultimate Toolbox (even more charts, systemless), Mythic GM Emulator. Necromancer Games has a few toolboxy books and the old school very sandboxy setting Wilderlands of High Fantasy, and Goodman Games has the smaller but gorgeous Dungeon Alphabet.
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Something about motivated characters: some people are just good at this. Their characters always have motivations; if they have the slightest clue about what the campaign is about they'll fit right in. Other people need a bit more help to get started.
Many people have a hard time moving beyond "get rich" or "level up" as motivations. I think some of these are helpful for them:
* Setting description; what's going on in the setting? What are the conflicts in the setting? If you can pick sides for or against something in the setting, that helps in finding a motivation. (Promote this god. Fight that race. Stop injustice. End slavery. Avenge your clan.)
* A list of sample motivations: ideas to get people started. Not meant to be an exhaustive list or menu, but if people want to take some of those suggestions instead of developing their own ideas, good enough.
* A push in the right direction. You actually need to ask people what their PC's motivation is. It's not enough to know what a PC is capable of or where he's come from; you need to know where he wants to go. Ask the player to formulate one long-term and one short-term goal. More is allowed, but this is the required minimum.
Motivation seems to be a BIG key I missed in my post, but have remembered in my actual game design. This here though, I've never thought of that. I like that idea of a list of motivations, and allowing the players to "choose their own" motivation that is already suited for the world. Its like not tailor the game to the players, but allowing the players to be tailor suited to the game...interesting. I'm going to have to try that.
Isn't that kind of in the same vein as the "100 reasons to leave town" esk threads? When I have a specific kind of quest in mind (and even when I don't) my players usually end up in a tavern or bar asking for information about occurrences. Recently I have been working on creating recurring npcs designed to have a bunch of knowledge local to help my characters out when they are lo oking for work. Sometimes I'll have signs or banners up in town saying "help needed: group of adventurers" or "body guard needed" or something along those lines. If all else fails you could just have them randomly roll a gather information check. In one if my groups they call it "roll for adventure!" If you roll a 1 you stay at home all day and do nothing.