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Horoar
2010-08-07, 11:21 PM
As a performer of improvised theater (think: Who's line is it anyway), I've decided that the best way to let the PC's do whatever the hell they want in my campaighn is to make up the details of my 3.5 campaign as i go along.

The idea is that the party can do whatever they wish and face the consequences. Thus this free flowing world won't exist until the PC's encounter it. I'll do this with a mixture of dice rolling and fiat. But it needs to be playable of course.

So I'm asking what the bear minimum for preparation would be to allow it to run properly. I've already got a big map, a city and enough dungeon for the first session.

Shyftir
2010-08-07, 11:34 PM
Mostly you want a few plot hooks with basic storylines ready to attach to them, your players will need reasons to do anything at all, outside of boredom. If you give them no direction and no plot hooks to find. You'll have them running around the countryside looking for stuff to kill, or ransacking the town, depending on the player attitude/party make-up.

Horoar
2010-08-07, 11:44 PM
Right. Plot hooks. I have a main quest kinda thing that they can follow, or not.
I don't think theres any problem with town sacking if thats what they want to do. Of course they'll piss of alot of people.

Some of the players already have their goals in mind. One of them wants to commit deicide and the blind-idiot barbarian wants to rod Shorteen of 'book magic'.

So I'll give them ways of doing that.

Sliver
2010-08-08, 04:15 AM
As a performer of improvised theater (think: Who's line is it anyway), I've decided that the best way to let the PC's do whatever the hell they want in my campaighn is to make up the details of my 3.5 campaign as i go along.

The idea is that the party can do whatever they wish and face the consequences. Thus this free flowing world won't exist until the PC's encounter it. I'll do this with a mixture of dice rolling and fiat. But it needs to be playable of course.

So I'm asking what the bear minimum for preparation would be to allow it to run properly. I've already got a big map, a city and enough dungeon for the first session.

That's how I run most of my PbP... Most of the things I come up with on the spot, works fine for me.

Aroka
2010-08-08, 04:23 AM
As a performer of improvised theater (think: Who's line is it anyway), I've decided that the best way to let the PC's do whatever the hell they want in my campaighn is to make up the details of my 3.5 campaign as i go along.

The idea is that the party can do whatever they wish and face the consequences. Thus this free flowing world won't exist until the PC's encounter it. I'll do this with a mixture of dice rolling and fiat. But it needs to be playable of course.

So I'm asking what the bear minimum for preparation would be to allow it to run properly. I've already got a big map, a city and enough dungeon for the first session.

This is called a sandbox, and it's pretty common. The downside is that you need to either prepare huge amounts of material beforehand (this can be helped by using an existing setting) or improvise convincingly and consistently on the spot. There's limits to improvisation, though - especially with cities, dungeons, and good detail - so you'll probably want to ask the players to keep you one step ahead: ask them what they're planning to do next time at the end of every session, then prepare for that.