PDA

View Full Version : Running grand stories in Sandboxes through artifacts?



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?

FreddyNoNose
2017-06-24, 01:57 PM
I don't agree with the statement "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.". That presupposes too much imo and is basically saying X isn't a campaign.

As a DM who can easily run off the top of my head, you have to be able to create spontaneously and approach situations in a manner that can be built upon and/or lead to unexpected things. Don't commit to something as if it were written in stone.

As to characters and long term goals, it has been a recommended thing for a looooong time. Not every player wants that though so it can be heavy handed. Especially if you come out and directly ask what is your character's life time goal. Zzzzz. It is better, imho, to introduce things to players when you have solo time with them and allow them to chase IF THEY WANT TO. Also, if the PC wants to have a life goal of say building a magic item of power, they will let you know in some way.

For example, there was a group of adventurers years ago who the PCs have heard of, or some of them have. At some point, the mage finds a diary while searching for books or looking in a library. It was written by an Inn Keeper who died some years ago. He describes these adventurers and questions they asked about local area. Questions about a wizard that used to come to town from time to time. If the Inn Keeper knew if anyone had found this hidden home or had recovered any magic items or his spell book.

This could just be a simple one-off dungeon. Or it could lead to a long term goal for the mage as a mystery presents it self. Maybe he follows tries to find out where else the group of adventurers adventured and further tracks down more information. Maybe he gains a magic ring of some power but still there are rumors of more things to gain. Leading to a series of information gathering and adventuring. Finally he tracks down that the adventurers mage found the magic book he was looking for but was lost while in a dungeon. If he tracks that down, the book might allow to travel to another world or whatever you want to make it "epic".

these things are easy to do off the top of your head. It just takes practice.

Yora
2017-06-24, 02:39 PM
The more I had been thinking about it, the more problems I realized, which I think make the original idea unfeasable or at best pointless.

But I got a better variant to offer for examination:
It's a pretty normal sandbox with plenty of places to explore, but every so often the players will discover clues about a legendary artifact or site of power that is in a hidden location somewhere in the region. While exploring various ruins the players will get a better picture of what it is, which lets them start a more targeted investigation and search. When they do that, other people will become aware of it and also start looking. If the players don't feel very interested in pursuing the leads, they can be attacked by NPCs who want to steal any items they have that can be useful hints. This makes the search more personal but if the players decide to still not go after it then that's just fine and they can keep doing whatever else they felt like in the sandbox campaign and the artifact will land in someone elses hand. Simple as that. It's a plot hook. A very shiny one that I expect most players to grab on to, but still optional and the game can continue without it.
I think that this aproach is a much better alternative as it works much better with irregular attendence of players and doesn't leave things hanging if the players feel like moving on to something else before the big finale and reveal at the end.

However, this still holds a big question: What does an artifact do, why would the players want it, why don't they want someone else to have it, and what happens when the players take possession of it?
The classic answer is "if the evil guys get it they will destroy the world". But that's not helpful here as such a quest would be the opposite of optional. It becomes the most important thing in the world that has to take precedent over anything else the players might want to do. That's not an option.
I feel like it needs to be something that is really attractive but not vital, and that won't completely upheave the campaign when the players own it.

the_david
2017-06-25, 07:10 AM
There's a approach to running sandboxes that I've come up with (but have never used) that I have never seen mentioned, except by me. I don't know exactly when or how I came up with the idea, but it builds on two things I experienced with RPGs. The first is a character that I've created that wouldn't fit in most campaigns. I'd love to play him, but his background and his motivations make him unsuitable for most published adventurepaths and modules.
The second is a campaign I DMed. One of the players had written a background for her story of about five lines. It wasn't much, but I managed to pull out enough information that I managed to create two of the most hated villains I've ever created. I'll never forget the look on her face after the big reveal. It was priceless.

So the way I want to run a sandbox is by letting the players come up with anything they want. Let them write a background story for their character, or let them use that character that didn't fit in that adventurepath. This way you don't have to come up with ideas for your sandbox by yourself. The players will hand you the pieces of the puzzle. All you have to do is put them together. The other benefit is that the players will be more invested in their characters. Everybody wins.

Fri
2017-06-26, 11:20 PM
An idea I had for sandbox game with plot, or for party who don't care to follow your plot hook in sandbox campaign(but generally still happy playing with you obviously) is have the plot come to them.

A simple example that actually is a nice sandbox campaign on its own, say in one of their random encounter one of them killed an important destined person for a cultist. Then the destiny transfer to the party (or something like that, you can make up whatever reason to tie the cultist to the party). Then, whatever they do, whenever they do, the cult send cultist ninja to the party. The party could ignore the mysterious cultist ninjas that obviously part of an organization, you could keep sending bigger and badder cultist ninja toward them while they're sleeping, while they're kicking back in a random tavern, or while they're looting some unrelated dungeon, until finally the big bad of the cult came to them personally. They might care, they might not, but at the very least this would scratch the GM's itch for a plot, while the party can still ignore it and do unrelated dungeon crawling.

Of course, the party might be curious on what crazy person keep throwing ninjas at them all day long, and investigate it...

Knaight
2017-06-27, 01:51 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.

Apart from big and epic implying really long, this is pretty routine - I've seen several, and the reason they're not long is because nobody in the group likes the idea of the 5 year campaign anyways (also logistics would kill it anyways).

GungHo
2017-06-27, 11:03 AM
Apart from big and epic implying really long, this is pretty routine - I've seen several, and the reason they're not long is because nobody in the group likes the idea of the 5 year campaign anyways (also logistics would kill it anyways).

I'm not sure Yora was going there, but I also think going into a campaign with the intent of it being a 5 year campaign is a great way to kill your campaign. If it happens to end up that way, that's great. I have a ~13 year campaign. But, no one intended it to do that. People don't have a clue what their lives will be like in 5 years or if gaming will even be a part of it. They could have marriages, kids, layoffs, moves, car wrecks, divorces... you name it.

Beyond that part, I think "sandbox" or "roguelike" campaigns can work, but you have to have players that understand they need to bring some of that structure a DM would usually provide regarding where they go, what they do, and what challenges are next. You also have to be willing, as the DM, to adjust on the fly and be willing to know when your folks are stuck in the weeds.

90sMusic
2017-07-01, 05:44 AM
I run a campaign you might be interested in. It is a massive world that took 20 years to build. It began as a series of small campaigns and occasional one shots and each time just took place in a different setting until after a couple of years they were pieced together into a larger world and then fleshed out to fill everything in between and work on it from there.

At that point, any time players went somewhere that wasn't defined, it was made up on the spot for them and after that particular iteration of the campaign concluded, anything new that was created was refined and cleaned up and had any of the spur of the moment inconsistencies removed. And this practice of playing and adding continued on ever since.

The basic idea for running the campaign works like this... You begin all the players in a particular city and go through each of their backstories to create a reason why they traveled to this city and you use your prep time before the game for adding little scenarios unique to each of them and draw them all together and give them a reason to work together. Depending on the type of group, this is usually pretty easy, especially if they're going after the same group of people albeit for different reasons.

So the first little bit of the campaign is just getting them to meet and begin working together. Not long after, an event takes place in the city that everyone in town gets involved in (and you can see them starting to set this up and prepare even as the campaign begins) and it almost always draws the players into it. From there, the story kind of naturally evolves into a primary, overarching quest goal and they often get a few different leads to follow up on from there.

At this point, it's mostly just sandbox. The game world is immense with 8 continents, more than two dozen large factions and countless smaller ones, many different cities, dungeons, events, secrets, and so on. The way the world is designed is each city has a handful of little events the players can get tied up in and involved with when they visit the city. Sometimes they are very obvious, other times you have to do certain things to trigger them, but there are at least 6 side quests in each town/village so players passing through can choose to either get involved in them or just leave. They have to learn very early on they won't have time to do everything because theres just too much to do, they have to get over that mentality of "there is something here, i must do it" because they'll never make any progress on their bigger objectives. Many of these locations also have clues and information about different aspects of the game world or characters within it and often have little links and tie ins back to some of the major questlines.

So there is a big primary plot that you can either choose to follow or not, and it branches into different stories that change the world based on what decisions you make, but in addition to that you have a number of major plotlines you can get involved in all over the world and countless minor ones.

A playthrough generally takes 9 to 15 months depending on the pace and goals of the players in the group. I've had some who ignored the main story and just went around exploring to seek fame and fortune or pursue their player-specific quests I presented them with based on their backgrounds. Some sort of beeline through the main story, but most do something in between and get involved in most of the major plots they come across while still mostly pursuing that main goal.

The game only ends when the main plot has been concluded, the players choose to retire from their many adventures, or the game world just "runs out of time". What I mean by running out of time is all of these events are on a time table so they all begin when the game begins and you may miss some or come in during the middle of certain plots. The game is setup to have them all end by the time the primary plot line reaches it's conclusion (with or without player interaction with it) because that primary plot line has very major consequences to the world.

The adventure could theoretically continue beyond that point but since it averages about a year of real world time to reach, it's always seemed to be a good stopping point for a satisfying conclusion to the game and everyone is over level 20 by that point as well. Then we usually start over and play it again, but they make different choices the next time so the game plays completely differently and it's like an entirely different campaign.

90sMusic
2017-07-01, 05:49 AM
The more I had been thinking about it, the more problems I realized, which I think make the original idea unfeasable or at best pointless.

But I got a better variant to offer for examination:
It's a pretty normal sandbox with plenty of places to explore, but every so often the players will discover clues about a legendary artifact or site of power that is in a hidden location somewhere in the region. While exploring various ruins the players will get a better picture of what it is, which lets them start a more targeted investigation and search. When they do that, other people will become aware of it and also start looking. If the players don't feel very interested in pursuing the leads, they can be attacked by NPCs who want to steal any items they have that can be useful hints. This makes the search more personal but if the players decide to still not go after it then that's just fine and they can keep doing whatever else they felt like in the sandbox campaign and the artifact will land in someone elses hand. Simple as that. It's a plot hook. A very shiny one that I expect most players to grab on to, but still optional and the game can continue without it.
I think that this aproach is a much better alternative as it works much better with irregular attendence of players and doesn't leave things hanging if the players feel like moving on to something else before the big finale and reveal at the end.

However, this still holds a big question: What does an artifact do, why would the players want it, why don't they want someone else to have it, and what happens when the players take possession of it?
The classic answer is "if the evil guys get it they will destroy the world". But that's not helpful here as such a quest would be the opposite of optional. It becomes the most important thing in the world that has to take precedent over anything else the players might want to do. That's not an option.
I feel like it needs to be something that is really attractive but not vital, and that won't completely upheave the campaign when the players own it.

You don't have to fall into the "the world is going to end if we dont stop it!" trap. Villains exist at all levels and for all manner of reasons.

You could have an artifact that was just a very powerful magical staff. Then you have some jerk gets ahold of it and starts using it to do naughty things. He could take over a kingdom or at the very least start raising an army of the dead or something and waging war against this kingdom. It isn't exactly world ending in the grand scheme of things, and you could easily ignore it by simply going to another part of the world, but it would mean a great deal to those locals if you did something about it and as the reward you get a badass magical staff.