Yora
2017-06-24, 10:47 AM
The holy grail of all campaigns: A big epic story where the plot is not predetermined and the players are in charge of where it goes. Something that almost any GM would love to run, almost any player would want to play, and pretty much nobody has ever claimed to have seen with their own eyes.
Unscripted campaigns in which the players decide where to go are not that uncommon, but they appear to generally consist of pretty straightforward explorations of dungeons. Having total freedom in the preparation and execution of these expedition is great and a lot of fun, and easily more than enough for most campaigns.
But at the same time most GMs also love the dream of running big stories with awesome battles and great NPCs. Doing both at once often seems like eating your cake and having it too.
In recent weeks a learned a lot of new things about you actually get and keep players going in a sandbox campaign and how to make the exploration compelling. And this gave me an idea for a new way of running campaigns that I have not seen described anywhere before.
The important thing for succesfully running a hexcrawl or megadungeon is that the players have a default goal which they can always come back to at any time they don't know what else to do. Which is going out and expanding their map of the wilderness or dungeon. But extending the map is not actually a goal in its own sake. It's a simple device to get the PCs of their seats and go somewhere where they can run into new adventures. Once they find something interesting to investigate further or run into someone to start a fight with, these things are meant to take precedence, with the exploring and mapping getting thrown aside for now. This is where the actual adventures are taking place. And if an adventure runs its course and does not organically lead to another adventure the players want to assume, they can always get their map back out and return to exploring some of the blank areas.
Edit: I now think the following is a bad idea for various reasons, but there's an improved version in my next post.
And now this gave me a new idea how you might perhaps be able to run a story focused campaign without any script and predetermined plots: You effectively prepare and run the game like a sandbox but at the very start you give the players a long term goal. In a normal sandbox the players can also pick goals for their characters, but they can also discard or replace them at any time without any problems, depending on how they feel about it as the campaign goes on. But here it would be different: The goal is determined first and then the players create characters and a party specifically to play a campaign that is about pursuing that goal.
It might appear a bit intrusive on the players' liberty to play their characters as they like in a sandbox game, but the very same thing is the case with any scripted adventures and adventure paths. With the difference that players generally don't know what the adventure will be about when they make their charaters. And players who play such campaigns don't have any problem with following the story even if it doesn't match what they imagined for their PCs in any way. So I think it is really not much to ask of players coming from scripted campaigns. Being told what their characters will go after in advance actually increases their freedom to play characters the way they like since they can prepare for it.
As for the actual story and goal, I think this idea actually works only for a specific type of campaigns: A bit quest to find a thing that is really difficult to get to. A good example is actually in the first D&D hexcrawl, The Isle of Dread. In theory, the players can decide to do whatever they want on that isle. But as it is written it begins by the GM telling the players that they have heard of a huge black pearl of incredible value being somewhere in a hidden city on the Isle of Dread and that they are now setting out on an expedition to find it. It's more of a hook to get the players to the isle and if they wander off into the jungle to do whatever they want it's fine. Getting general directions to the city is pretty easy and once there it's just a small linear dungeon to go through and they have the pearl. The End. Here it's all about the journey and the destination is inconsequential.
But if you make the search for clues to find the hiding space much more complex and also add various competing factions who also want this thing, I see the potential for Big Epic StoriesTM. The clues needed to find the hiding space and the tools to be able to get inside can be placed in various dungeons around the sandbox or in the bases and lairs of significant NPCs. If the sandbox is designed with plenty of NPCs who can give directions and liberal scatterings of clues that point to the various dungeons, then I think such a campaign can be played completely unscripted and entirely in the hands of the players. They can talk to whoever they want and use whatever method they want to get the information and keys that they need. It is the GM and the competing NPCs who are reacting to the players actions. Not the players always being one step behind the villain until they finally catch up in the final boss fight room where The ThingTM had been resting all that time.
There are of course some potential shortcomings. The rival NPCs would have to be somewhat passive and incapable to progress their own search while the players are doing things at their own pace. And at the later stages they might require some GM boosting to be able to stay close behind the party and still remain a genuine threat. It's very easy to imagine that the players figure out a way to reach their ultimate goal and none of their various rivial being in any position to pursue them on the final push to victory. Of course there is always the threats and inhabitants native to the final dungeon, but for a great story it would just be much more dramatic if old enemies are trying to steal victory from their grasp.
This final issue is the main thing that I think still needs a lot more thought put into it. But as a general idea, what do you think of it?
Unscripted campaigns in which the players decide where to go are not that uncommon, but they appear to generally consist of pretty straightforward explorations of dungeons. Having total freedom in the preparation and execution of these expedition is great and a lot of fun, and easily more than enough for most campaigns.
But at the same time most GMs also love the dream of running big stories with awesome battles and great NPCs. Doing both at once often seems like eating your cake and having it too.
In recent weeks a learned a lot of new things about you actually get and keep players going in a sandbox campaign and how to make the exploration compelling. And this gave me an idea for a new way of running campaigns that I have not seen described anywhere before.
The important thing for succesfully running a hexcrawl or megadungeon is that the players have a default goal which they can always come back to at any time they don't know what else to do. Which is going out and expanding their map of the wilderness or dungeon. But extending the map is not actually a goal in its own sake. It's a simple device to get the PCs of their seats and go somewhere where they can run into new adventures. Once they find something interesting to investigate further or run into someone to start a fight with, these things are meant to take precedence, with the exploring and mapping getting thrown aside for now. This is where the actual adventures are taking place. And if an adventure runs its course and does not organically lead to another adventure the players want to assume, they can always get their map back out and return to exploring some of the blank areas.
Edit: I now think the following is a bad idea for various reasons, but there's an improved version in my next post.
And now this gave me a new idea how you might perhaps be able to run a story focused campaign without any script and predetermined plots: You effectively prepare and run the game like a sandbox but at the very start you give the players a long term goal. In a normal sandbox the players can also pick goals for their characters, but they can also discard or replace them at any time without any problems, depending on how they feel about it as the campaign goes on. But here it would be different: The goal is determined first and then the players create characters and a party specifically to play a campaign that is about pursuing that goal.
It might appear a bit intrusive on the players' liberty to play their characters as they like in a sandbox game, but the very same thing is the case with any scripted adventures and adventure paths. With the difference that players generally don't know what the adventure will be about when they make their charaters. And players who play such campaigns don't have any problem with following the story even if it doesn't match what they imagined for their PCs in any way. So I think it is really not much to ask of players coming from scripted campaigns. Being told what their characters will go after in advance actually increases their freedom to play characters the way they like since they can prepare for it.
As for the actual story and goal, I think this idea actually works only for a specific type of campaigns: A bit quest to find a thing that is really difficult to get to. A good example is actually in the first D&D hexcrawl, The Isle of Dread. In theory, the players can decide to do whatever they want on that isle. But as it is written it begins by the GM telling the players that they have heard of a huge black pearl of incredible value being somewhere in a hidden city on the Isle of Dread and that they are now setting out on an expedition to find it. It's more of a hook to get the players to the isle and if they wander off into the jungle to do whatever they want it's fine. Getting general directions to the city is pretty easy and once there it's just a small linear dungeon to go through and they have the pearl. The End. Here it's all about the journey and the destination is inconsequential.
But if you make the search for clues to find the hiding space much more complex and also add various competing factions who also want this thing, I see the potential for Big Epic StoriesTM. The clues needed to find the hiding space and the tools to be able to get inside can be placed in various dungeons around the sandbox or in the bases and lairs of significant NPCs. If the sandbox is designed with plenty of NPCs who can give directions and liberal scatterings of clues that point to the various dungeons, then I think such a campaign can be played completely unscripted and entirely in the hands of the players. They can talk to whoever they want and use whatever method they want to get the information and keys that they need. It is the GM and the competing NPCs who are reacting to the players actions. Not the players always being one step behind the villain until they finally catch up in the final boss fight room where The ThingTM had been resting all that time.
There are of course some potential shortcomings. The rival NPCs would have to be somewhat passive and incapable to progress their own search while the players are doing things at their own pace. And at the later stages they might require some GM boosting to be able to stay close behind the party and still remain a genuine threat. It's very easy to imagine that the players figure out a way to reach their ultimate goal and none of their various rivial being in any position to pursue them on the final push to victory. Of course there is always the threats and inhabitants native to the final dungeon, but for a great story it would just be much more dramatic if old enemies are trying to steal victory from their grasp.
This final issue is the main thing that I think still needs a lot more thought put into it. But as a general idea, what do you think of it?