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How much prep do I need for a sandbox?
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<blockquote data-quote="Calico_Jack73" data-source="post: 4707143" data-attributes="member: 14403"><p>The only sandbox games that I have done were all old World of Darkness but I imagine I'd prep the same way for any game.</p><p> </p><p>1) Location: Typically a group will stay in an area as long as there is no motivation to leave it. I like to have a good map of the town/village/city that the game will be taking place in. Give the players a copy (have a player version) since the idea of the Sandbox is to allow the Players to come up with their own plots.</p><p> </p><p>2) NPCs: Because the group will be staying in an area for a while you might want to flesh out the personalities of prominent NPCs. If you are feeling lazy you can do what I do. I use something like EBON (Everchanging Book of Names) to generate a list of 100 names and paste them into a spreadsheet. I then create two more columns of cells and print the whole thing out. These names I keep in reserve and use them as the game progresses. When I bring one into play I jot down in the second column (next to their name) their profession and in the third column I jot down notes about their personality. I call it "NPC's on the fly" and it works well.</p><p> </p><p>That's really it... in D&D you'll need to have some ideas for monster threats should the group want to go in for a good old fashioned dungeon crawl once in a while but if this is a true sandbox game your players should have short and long term goals and work toward achieving them. You should just sit back and react to their proactive actions (whereas in a normal game the players are the ones reacting to the DM's descriptions).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Calico_Jack73, post: 4707143, member: 14403"] The only sandbox games that I have done were all old World of Darkness but I imagine I'd prep the same way for any game. 1) Location: Typically a group will stay in an area as long as there is no motivation to leave it. I like to have a good map of the town/village/city that the game will be taking place in. Give the players a copy (have a player version) since the idea of the Sandbox is to allow the Players to come up with their own plots. 2) NPCs: Because the group will be staying in an area for a while you might want to flesh out the personalities of prominent NPCs. If you are feeling lazy you can do what I do. I use something like EBON (Everchanging Book of Names) to generate a list of 100 names and paste them into a spreadsheet. I then create two more columns of cells and print the whole thing out. These names I keep in reserve and use them as the game progresses. When I bring one into play I jot down in the second column (next to their name) their profession and in the third column I jot down notes about their personality. I call it "NPC's on the fly" and it works well. That's really it... in D&D you'll need to have some ideas for monster threats should the group want to go in for a good old fashioned dungeon crawl once in a while but if this is a true sandbox game your players should have short and long term goals and work toward achieving them. You should just sit back and react to their proactive actions (whereas in a normal game the players are the ones reacting to the DM's descriptions). [/QUOTE]
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