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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Campaign structure: combining the sandbox and adventure path
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<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 7151273" data-attributes="member: 6688858"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 7151273, member: 6688858"] 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. 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. [/QUOTE]
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