Campaign structure: combining the sandbox and adventure path

Libramarian · Jun 25, 2017

77IM said:
Savage Worlds' "Plot Point" campaigns work this way. It works extremely well.

Can you say more about how these work?

TheNoremac42 · Jun 25, 2017

I've been toying with the idea of a "galactic scale" sci-fi campaign. What I think I've figured out is that the PCs will have an Obi-Wan figure that will point them in the general direction of the plot, but he will get killed off before he can give the party any details. So they will have an idea of where to go, but they could choose to ignore their "chosen destiny" in favor of sandboxing with the big conflict hovering in the background.

FormerlyHemlock · Jun 26, 2017

Libramarian said:
That seems pretty gamey.

At the adventure level, yes--the players can choose whether they want to participate in simulationist fun (go and do proactive stuff in the sandbox, like start a space colony and recruit colonists for it, or engineer a war) or gamist fun (something with a defined start and end, and goals defined by the DM, at a level of difficulty telegraphed at the metagame level).

Within the adventure, the gamism mostly isn't there because it's already been hoisted to the metagame level (where it belongs, IMO--same level as character creation, which is extremely gamist in 5E due to feats and multiclassing rules). That's important to me as a naturally simulationist DM because it means that once the scenario is set up, I can let it unfold naturally. The gamism happens when I've got my adventure designer hat on, and am thinking about game structures and game theory, not when I've got my my DMing hat on and am I'm thinking about a living breathing world.

Different players have different preferences and levels of proactiveness. Some players really looooove searching for the perfect ingedients for their alchemical elixir of life; other players want the DM to put them in contrived situations where a village needs to be saved from outlaws or a princess needs to be kissed by a special frog. Some like both kinds of fun, on different timescales. I think it's good to be flexible, as long as you're clear which kind of activity is going on right now. (Otherwise, you wind up with the sandbox problem wherein you've offered the players numerous hooks, many of which are still open, and you don't know which ones to prepare for or which direction the PCs are going this week--and players themselves sometimes have trouble knowing when they can stop and take a breather. I'm finding that it works better to be able to end certain adventures in failure, a la "Sorry, the Affair of the White Swan is over. You never find the swan, and the consequence over the next year of that failure is such-and-such..." Then they can put it out of their mind and start over fresh with the next adventure next session.)

Libramarian · Jun 26, 2017

Fanaelialae said:
That was my initial thought too but, technically speaking, in Elder Scrolls the sandbox largely scales to your level (as does the main quest). So this is a bit different.

Another problem with Skyrim is the incentives for sandboxing and for following the main quest are totally messed up. You get the best treasure for working on the main quest while the dungeons are full of random garbage. You can do a quest for the Jarl and get a sweet flaming heirloom axe, or you can poke around in a dungeon and get like 5 lockpicks and a wheel of cheese. And the quest probably had a dungeon in it so you did some dungeoncrawling anyway.

There should be an inverse relationship between treasure quality and story relevance. Random dungeons should have the best treasure, while progressing the main story should be mostly its own reward (that and any resultant relationships/alliances with NPCs).

I'm pretty confident I can tempt players to the sandbox just by making it interesting and more lucrative than the main storyline content. As for tempting players back to the main storyline, I think that can be done by tying it to the game timeline. In fact that could be a working definition for main storyline content--that which causes serious consequences in the future if ignored.

The_Gunslinger658 said:
I am kind of trying to understand your post, but I'll assume your running a canned adventure. Personally I tried running a canned adventure once called Hoard of the Dragon Queen, that was first and last time I tried running a canned adventure, it just required way too much work and that time I spent trying to rejigger HotDQ could have been spent creating my own adventure. Though I am tempted to run Out of the Abyss just because it does look very unique in both play and style.

I'm not sure if I will work from a published adventure, setting or pure homebrew for my next campaign. I'm relatively weak at developing storylines, particularly in homebrew settings, I think because I tend to develop gonzo or fairtytale-ish content without the simulationist backing to help generate epic conflicts. I.e. I like building dungeons and enchanted woods, not so much nations/city states, factions and regional histories.

TwoSix · Jun 26, 2017

Seeding the sandbox with lucrative rewards that are also relevant/useful to the main storyline can also strengthen the interplay between the two. If the main storyline involves undead, give out scrolls with death ward or daylight, or potions of lesser restoration, maces of disruption, etc.

Also, if your tendencies lean towards the gonzo and the fairy-tale, I would lean into that. Don't build up a pseudo-medieval setting that you're not particularly interested in. Make an utterly generic human kingdom, and make it a crossroads of planar travel that multiple extraplanar factions are using as a battleground. Then your factions can be rival courts of fae, a demon lord, the evil sorcerous vizier mind controlling the king, etc.

CydKnight · Jun 26, 2017

My experience both as a player and a DM has been that most campaigns incorporate a balance of both sandbox and railroad. How far the scale is balanced to one or the other will depend on the style of the DM and players.

The game I regularly DM has been pretty evenly split down the middle. As a DM I find that railroading the party some helps me with preparation because I am not very good at improvisation. The players on the other hand seem to want a choice of railroad tracks to follow so I typically give them four or five paths to follow. They typically choose one, stick to it until the end, then move on to the next one. I sprinkle in a few random encounters here and there.

When the story paths start to dwindle or they seem less interested in a few of the choices, I add a few more to choose from through role play. I just have to make sure I am familiar and comfortable enough with a handful of smaller adventures so I am always prepared for whatever they choose. This isn't too difficult for me since I only choose adventures that I would be excited to run. Not one of them are an original idea from me. All are borrowed from written campaigns, mostly the DM's Guild. I alter them as I feel is necessary to fit into the on-going campaign, as well as, the parties strengths and weaknesses.

This works for our group but yours may require more sandbox or more railroad. I am sure there are also other ways to achieve a similar balance to the one we have.

Inchoroi · Jun 26, 2017

Libramarian said:
I may post some more thoughts on the broader concept later, but to start:

Anybody explicitly balance only certain plot-relevant encounters to party level? I.e. most encounters are in a status quo sandbox, not adjusted to party level, but main storyline encounters (or adventuring days/small dungeons) are re-balanced to provide a dramatically-tough-but-doable challenge for the party whenever they progress to them (or when the DM decides to introduce them as "bangs"). This would seem to be one step towards reconciling the most appealing aspects of both styles in one campaign. The sandboxing would replace the "filler" that all APs have, and the condensed storyline would give the sandbox a narrative rhythm.

For verisimilitude you could say that the BBEG is spying on the PCs and beefing up their defenses appropriately, or something like that.

It would be sort of like the inverse of milestone leveling -- instead of leveling the party as it feels appropriate for the story (which totally neuters sandboxing, at least as I understand it), you 'level' the story as it feels appropriate for the party. Anybody recognize that as their go-to campaign structure?

This is, in a way, how I run all my campaigns. Generally, they'll be sized differently, but they all follow the same idea. That idea is:

1. The party has some sort of Hook to draw them into adventuring in general. As part of my planning, I make a general "Hook", something that starts off the adventure, and I will make 3-5 "Character Hooks". Character Hooks are by far the more difficult, because it requires some planning on the various things that happen in the sandbox you're planning. It makes it quite interesting, however, because not only is there a "big hook", as it were, there are little hooks that tie to various other story threads. These enable the players to make characters that are directly tied to the setting--this makes the sandbox the player's story, not my campaign. One of my favorite quotes is, "The Setting drives the Characters that drives the Plot." This is paramount in how I make campaigns.

2. The Setting is alive; I'll have set-piece sidequests that can be abandoned or picked up as they go along adventuring, as well as a larger sort of "meta-plot" that they can explore, always remembering that this meta-plot, for want of a better term, must allow them to engage it in their own way; to tell their own story, in other words. My upcoming campaign (oh, god, it starts on July 19th, I'm dying) features a map that is something like 1 million square miles of which I've detailed, well, pretty much everything. But, it's important to remember that the Setting needs to be a living thing; it's not a static piece of terrain. Instead, take a page from Skyrim; NPCs will act according to their personality traits and resources. If this means the bad guys win because the PCs don't involve themselves with the plot, well, that's how it is, sometimes (generally I'll try to help them along by making the main "Hook" lead to the bad guys, so they'll have a chance to stop them before the world ends).

That all being said, perhaps some practical examples would be useful: take a look at, well, almost any of the modules and adventures produced by Necromancer Games and Frog God Games. They all follow the above pretty well; for some specific, look at The Grey Citadel, Shades of Grey, and Sword of Air. Unfortunately, they're all for 3.5 and Swords & Wizardry, so if you want to run them for another system, you'll have to convert them like I did...

Sometimes I wonder about my sanity.

Soul Stigma · Jun 27, 2017

My method is to have pregenerated encounter sets of varying difficulty for the party's current level. They may never get used, but they exist to facilitate easy sandbox exploration.

So, to the players, the sandbox levels with them.

As for the main quest line, though, it stays the same and hasn't been a problem in the past. I tend toward the Skyrim big story arc in a sandbox approach, but ensure that the PCs are involved in the big ending at the appropriate level.

I suppose if somehow the party was higher level than I originally intended, though, I would tweak the final showdown to be level appropriate.

Sword of Spirit · Jun 27, 2017

Libramarian said:
Anybody recognize that as their go-to campaign structure?

Yes.

In my theme adventures and one shots I balance things around the party's level (not the PCs in particular, because then their choices have no effect on their power relative to the challenges). But in anything I'd call a campaign, I do it more or less like you said.

1) Setting/World. Stuff happens here. It doesn't care about the PCs or their level. There be dragons where there be dragons, there be kobolds where there be kobolds, and there be "Temperate Forest Random Encounter Table" that isn't influenced by party level where there be otherwise undefined temperate forests. There are also NPCs and groups and nations and everything else doing their own thing with no pre-defined relevance to the PCs. This is the true sandbox, and is the foundation upon which everything is placed.
2) Plot Canvas. There isn't a story in the sense of a narrative when players are free to make spontaneous choices. There can, however, be a canvas of options to inform DM creative design around a plot-like scenario. For instance, Baron Munchausen and the 7 Dwarves are trying to take over the Technocracy of Smurfdum (now available in the Sword Coast!) The campaign starts with the party waking up in a cell*, having been captured by the bad guys. From there, they can do whatever they want, but there will be adventurous opportunities that are more or less level appropriate if they are interacting with this scenario. It is assumed that the party will be interacting with this scenario to some degree, while also pursuing unrelated interests in the Setting/World in general.

...I'm pretty sure this wasn't an uncommon play style back in the day.

*For some reason, I love starting campaigns with characters waking up in a cell.

S'mon · Jun 27, 2017

My Varisia/Golarion game uses converted published adventures, mostly from Adventure Paths, with minimal concession to PC level.

My sandbox Wilderlands game doesn't have 'a plot' but it does have BBEGs with their own plots. In practice a lot of this takes the Skyrim approach of providing survivable challenges to the PCs, so that low level PCs would have to go out of their way to encounter non-survivable stuff, usually heavily telegraphed, like the island with the ancient black dragon.
I think at higher level the PCs get a mix of status quo stuff (usually easily defeated) and occasional powerful monsters & NPCs tailored to provide a challenge. Players love seeing their high level PCs kerbstomp enemies they
would once have run from, and it certainly aids versimilitude when the lizardmen of Thracia are still 22 hp CR 0.5
enemies 18 levels later.

I would just point out though that a game can be 100% sandbox and yet 100% tailored. "Sandbox" and "Status Quo" are orthogonal concepts. At the extreme end it can feel like you're playing a level-less game. I treated
Oblivion that way - levels didn't make me more powerful, so I ignored them.