FallenRX
Adventurer
New DM's have been there before, they make a sandbox campaign, you drop them in the village, you ask them what do they want to do, and...they have no idea. This is an issue a lot of DM's have when they run the sandbox campaign for the first time, you prep a bunch of content the players have no idea how to interact with it, nor what to even do. This is how bad sandbox campaigns start, and gives sandbox campaigns this "Aimless" reputation when in reality, this is caused by bad sandbox campaigns, that lack a default action.
A default action means, something the player will default to get content or information on content by simply doing something there. This is important in a sandbox campaign, because it gives them a direction, and gives them a way to interact with the world, and get hooks to various activities, it gives them the sand to actually play with and make stuff in the sandbox. Now note, these default actions shouldn't just give them one or two things, but give them tons of options that the players get to pick and choose from, and as they do those adventures those hooks lead them on, the adventures themselves will lead them to more adventures and hooks as well, and whenever they get bored of going down that questline, they can go do the default action again and find something entirely new.
Without this default action, sandbox campaigns will always falter as you either have to drop or force players into hooks/scenarios with no choice, or hope they wander around a featureless void until they just run into whatever content you have prepped, which makes them feel aimless, and kinda lost, and they will just ignore any other content outside of what you put in front of them.
Types of Default Actions
So what are these Default actions? What can they do? Well, the first Default Action should be obvious.
Tavern Rumors. Dont know what to do? Go to a tavern, and get the local rumors, this works in any type of campaign, simply just go to the tavern make some NPCs, and let the players interact and learn about whats going on in town, give them hooks, NPC's to meet, connections and let them build the story about what they are interested from there. Its why sandbox campaigns are best start in a tavern.
How to make this interesting, is making a variety of taverns about different topics and interests. For example a fancy tavern made by higher class merchants, and nobles, with spread rumors about what the upper class is doing, trade deals, plots against each other, social connections, gaining rich patrons who are looking for rare things.
Taverns piloted by traditional Adventurers, will know about the Local Dungeons, Ruins, Monster Hunts, Beasts, and giant legends, of the region to look into.
Taverns made by the typical residents, will go over residences usual problems, monsters attacking crops, strange creatures in wells, or just local issues going around, like how hunters are getting killed during their usual trips, or haunted houses.
Having a variety of Taverns with different central topics seems like a good way to offer variety to your players in a unique and more social way, introduce Key NPCs, Patrons, interests, and getting people engaged in local ongoings immediately.
Dungeons. Having a Big Dungeon nearby with an ancient history that tells them about more hooks and information around. The classic DnD method, tried and true is an immediate and more action-packed default action, if the players don't know what to do? Go to to dungeon, and get some loot, heck make the central hook of the sandbox about this dungeon, this gets to the heart of what DnD is all about, dungeon-crawling.
But what if this is a bit boring? To make it interesting is simple, use the dungeon to key hooks about other locations and adventures, what if there is an empty tomb of an ancient lich down there, and you unveil the mystery of where this lich went, showing possible locations around the world of where he went, or want something more socially involved, have patrons looking for specific treasures in certain parts of a dungeon, or have a secret society of people who are down there looking to rebuild their lost civilization, get your players backstories involved, what if they are looking for something down there, or what if they funds they got from exploring the dungeon, and renown allows them to accomplish their goals, like building a castle, or establishing their kingdom. Something as simple as multiple factions conflicting over the treasures in the dungeon, or living in the dungeon can generate tons of hooks, both in and outside of it, and as time goes on let the game evolve to outside of the dungeon itself. This is the classic DnD adventure lines here.
Hex/Pointcrawling. Don't know what to do? Explore the Map. Simple and classic as well, Hex/Pointcrawling is a classic structure of running sandbox campaigns, due to their exploration player movement-based exploration where the players can really drive it, separate each part of map into different regions with its own conflicts and issues, and locations to discover and let it grow into larger adventures. To the north is a strange haunted forest with ancients ruins to a lost civilization there, who people haunt the place, key each key and point with stuff about the history of this place, or have a evil overlord control a part of the map, and let the players get into this region, and discover rebel camps, outposts of his military, let them make connections and find and defeat parts of the evil overlords controlled areas, and push back against them eventually taking him out. Let them stumble across settlements with conflicts of their own from monster raids, to faction wars, let them find hidden lairs of great beasts and their minions(use regional effects to convey this, and hint at all.). Heck a simple questline of exploring a uncharted region at the behest of a nation can go far.Hex/Point crawling can go a long way to get the breath of the wild like, open world RPG experience people do want from DnD, put questlines with clear hooks to the next location they need to go, there with NPCs they care about, and storylines that are fun and you got yourself a wild open world.
Patrons/Faction. Dont know what to do? Talk to your Patron, giving the PC's a patron/faction, to give them missions, is a classic, let this fuel intrigue and conflict in your game. Working for a Assassins guild? Let the patron gives the players multiple choice of Assassination marks, to go up in the ranks? A Noble looking for ancient treasures? Let it give them quests to lost dungeons, and give them information about the treasure they are looking for? A Hidden Society of spies for good? Let them get missions for investigating criminal factions, corrupt nobles, and foul villains, dont get me start on criminal syndicates and heists. Dont let these just be one off missions either, let some missions branch off into greater questlines, that go to dramatic and greater places, multiple locations. Lets say killing one mark for assassination uncovers that the person you killed was a part of a network of Rebels trying to overthrow the kingdom, let them decide if they wanna join those rebels and do jobs for them, or try to wipe them out.
Evolving the Campaign beyond the Hook.
Having these actions, gives the players choices on what should they do during a campaign, and presents them hooks, options, missions, and questlines. And also do not let this be stagnant, the point is these hooks and questlines are a starting point, let them evolve and your PC's evolve the sandbox campaign beyond just the initial mission, let their quests, stories and histories affect the course of the campaign, that is the point of the sandbox campaign, give the players options, and let them decide what they wanna do and how far they want them to go, let each hook themselves lead to a questline, a whole storyline even, that presents other options adventures tied to it. And if the players wish to use this hooks in a unique way, or built their own story from it? Let them, and prep ways for them to do that, let the game evolve, and become something special. Do not reset the actions of the PC's nor do not let certain hooks and threads stagnate, let the world evolve too, let the players own choices change the world and scenarios they encounter.
A Sandbox campaign is not a campaign where players have to sit through a featureless void trying to find content or fun, no, a sandbox campaign is where players are empowered and giving choices on what the next scenario is, and can always dictate what they wish to do with their scenarios and the hooks, and to do this you need to give them choices, and more importantly, a way to get choices. Try to make these hooks nonlinear as well, have multiple scenarios that all hint to each other, to give them a multiple options that lead to the all of the choices, until they hit the conclusion, this makes the game feel way more open with tons of options to get to places.
What are they interested in?
The hardest part from here is getting them interested how do you know what they are engaged with, what type of content you should prep beforehand, well thats easy! What do you think their backstory is for, Its just them outright telling you what they are interested in doing, and what do their characters care about, prep storylines and plotlines out there with it, sandbox campaign isnt them just making up stuff and following their backstories out of nothing, its you MAKING that by putting hooks, storylines, and scenarios, about their backstory, and using the default action to give that to them. This leads me to the next Default action.
Following their backstory. Don't know what to do? Follow their backstory, try tying they backstory to a particular hook, and let that backstory give them tons of adventures, link their backstories as well using this hook too, what if the fighter who is searching for his fathers killer is looking for him in a town where the Cleric, is investigating the Cult of the Murder god, and that killer is a member of that cult. Simple stuff like this can go a long way. What if their backstory isnt that story-driven something more simple like them being a farmboy looking for adventure, people who make backstories like this usually want their past to be their past, and are just along for the ride, so just let them be along for the ride, and they usually will bite on any hook in general, if you really wish them to be invested, try dragging their past to them, like their families farm being attacked due to their actions, dramatic stuff like that. If the character's background choice is being an Artisan, give them hooks about rare materials, or Guild missions, if their backstory is being a Charlatan, give them hooks about con jobs, and people to fool and stuff like that. The hard part is tying this together but this is handled at session 0, but using their backstories for hooks is the point. Use it to generate big epic dramatic Questlines, that engage them, because they made these quests and content themselves.
If they still aren't interested?
Well this usually comes from two problems, one your scenarios hooks aren't interesting enough, a lot of DM's make their hooks really bland, usually "there is an event at a fair" or something thats is just why they are at the location of the adventure, not the dramatic pull "there are monsters attacking the fair", "there are people being murdered in the bilges", "A evil tyrant and his army are talking over the outer lands", you have to make your hooks exciting, and make them say "I wanna do that", Get them excited, and if you bring out all the stops, and they still arent biting. Simply ask them directly, what they are interested in doing, and then prep stuff for them to do it,(or improv on the spot.) Sometimes direct communication is needed as a misunderstanding may be the issue, than give them hooks based on what they were interested in doing, Sandbox campaigns can have a specific goal and them, as long as their is multiple options and questlines, with no set "main" path, it is a sandbox campaign.
Choose the right Default Action
Think about your default action too, picking the right one informs expectations of the story, sometimes pubcrawl around for rumors isnt that exciting, and they wanna kick down the door and get loot, this is where you make the default action "The Dungeon", or they want something more direct, giving them a Patron who makes quests and hooks/content for them to do is good as well, especially if it directly relates to what they want to do. If they want heists, let their patron be a theives guild, if they wish to explore a island, let their Default action, be a Hex/Point crawl, think about this and ask your players what type of adventures they want out of the campaign and make the default actions around that.
Prepwork.
This sounds like a lot of prep? Because it is kinda, but not as much as you think, to prep sandbox campaigns, all you need to do is basically just make "Content", "Content" meaning, Dungeons, Encounters(Social/Combat), Locations, Mysteries, just make about 2-4 ways to inform the PC's about this content, that is all it really takes, you can inform them using? The Default Action, or Random encounters, or tying it to another hook they are interested in(this is how you get questlines).
You just need to Locations keyed and NPCs really. Trying to figure out exactly what choices or scenes, the PC's will have to do to is a fool errand, and wasted prep on choices that wont happen, just focus on NPC's their personality/motivations, and the Locations and Goals involved in whats in those locations, and where they lead too, this can be a few sentences. Also steal from adventures, one shots, and ideas from stories you love, and games you read, throw as much in there as you can and you will can bust out content in no time.
CONCLUSION.
And thats really all i have to say about this, this is how you run a sandbox campaign, and what is needed, sandbox campaigns are not empty voids where the players have the aimlessly wander around nothing to get content, or entertain themselves, Sandbox campaigns are just empowering the PC's to choose what content they wish to do in the world, and giving them multiple choices of that content, and letting them decide the scenario presented, or make new scenarios with what they are interested, its just a matter of making the content they wish to play in, and having a default action to deliver information about whats around to them, or outright get them to that content.
Remember, even in sandbox games, like Skyrim, GTA or Elden Ring. If you don't know what to do, you can always just do the main quest/Dungeon, the "Default Action" which will give you more stuff to do, and will open you to more options outside of the main one along the way, via clues, NPCs, or hooks.
The difference, that makes TTRPGs special, is that there is no true main quest, and any hook, or things the PC's are interested in or want to do, can become the big epic main quest instead, you just need a way to inform them about their options, that is all.
TL;DR. Your sandbox campaigns need a default action to give them meaningful options on how to engage with the campaign if they don't know what options are available, or are not interested in the current options on what to do.
A default action means, something the player will default to get content or information on content by simply doing something there. This is important in a sandbox campaign, because it gives them a direction, and gives them a way to interact with the world, and get hooks to various activities, it gives them the sand to actually play with and make stuff in the sandbox. Now note, these default actions shouldn't just give them one or two things, but give them tons of options that the players get to pick and choose from, and as they do those adventures those hooks lead them on, the adventures themselves will lead them to more adventures and hooks as well, and whenever they get bored of going down that questline, they can go do the default action again and find something entirely new.
Without this default action, sandbox campaigns will always falter as you either have to drop or force players into hooks/scenarios with no choice, or hope they wander around a featureless void until they just run into whatever content you have prepped, which makes them feel aimless, and kinda lost, and they will just ignore any other content outside of what you put in front of them.
Types of Default Actions
So what are these Default actions? What can they do? Well, the first Default Action should be obvious.
Tavern Rumors. Dont know what to do? Go to a tavern, and get the local rumors, this works in any type of campaign, simply just go to the tavern make some NPCs, and let the players interact and learn about whats going on in town, give them hooks, NPC's to meet, connections and let them build the story about what they are interested from there. Its why sandbox campaigns are best start in a tavern.
How to make this interesting, is making a variety of taverns about different topics and interests. For example a fancy tavern made by higher class merchants, and nobles, with spread rumors about what the upper class is doing, trade deals, plots against each other, social connections, gaining rich patrons who are looking for rare things.
Taverns piloted by traditional Adventurers, will know about the Local Dungeons, Ruins, Monster Hunts, Beasts, and giant legends, of the region to look into.
Taverns made by the typical residents, will go over residences usual problems, monsters attacking crops, strange creatures in wells, or just local issues going around, like how hunters are getting killed during their usual trips, or haunted houses.
Having a variety of Taverns with different central topics seems like a good way to offer variety to your players in a unique and more social way, introduce Key NPCs, Patrons, interests, and getting people engaged in local ongoings immediately.
Dungeons. Having a Big Dungeon nearby with an ancient history that tells them about more hooks and information around. The classic DnD method, tried and true is an immediate and more action-packed default action, if the players don't know what to do? Go to to dungeon, and get some loot, heck make the central hook of the sandbox about this dungeon, this gets to the heart of what DnD is all about, dungeon-crawling.
But what if this is a bit boring? To make it interesting is simple, use the dungeon to key hooks about other locations and adventures, what if there is an empty tomb of an ancient lich down there, and you unveil the mystery of where this lich went, showing possible locations around the world of where he went, or want something more socially involved, have patrons looking for specific treasures in certain parts of a dungeon, or have a secret society of people who are down there looking to rebuild their lost civilization, get your players backstories involved, what if they are looking for something down there, or what if they funds they got from exploring the dungeon, and renown allows them to accomplish their goals, like building a castle, or establishing their kingdom. Something as simple as multiple factions conflicting over the treasures in the dungeon, or living in the dungeon can generate tons of hooks, both in and outside of it, and as time goes on let the game evolve to outside of the dungeon itself. This is the classic DnD adventure lines here.
Hex/Pointcrawling. Don't know what to do? Explore the Map. Simple and classic as well, Hex/Pointcrawling is a classic structure of running sandbox campaigns, due to their exploration player movement-based exploration where the players can really drive it, separate each part of map into different regions with its own conflicts and issues, and locations to discover and let it grow into larger adventures. To the north is a strange haunted forest with ancients ruins to a lost civilization there, who people haunt the place, key each key and point with stuff about the history of this place, or have a evil overlord control a part of the map, and let the players get into this region, and discover rebel camps, outposts of his military, let them make connections and find and defeat parts of the evil overlords controlled areas, and push back against them eventually taking him out. Let them stumble across settlements with conflicts of their own from monster raids, to faction wars, let them find hidden lairs of great beasts and their minions(use regional effects to convey this, and hint at all.). Heck a simple questline of exploring a uncharted region at the behest of a nation can go far.Hex/Point crawling can go a long way to get the breath of the wild like, open world RPG experience people do want from DnD, put questlines with clear hooks to the next location they need to go, there with NPCs they care about, and storylines that are fun and you got yourself a wild open world.
Patrons/Faction. Dont know what to do? Talk to your Patron, giving the PC's a patron/faction, to give them missions, is a classic, let this fuel intrigue and conflict in your game. Working for a Assassins guild? Let the patron gives the players multiple choice of Assassination marks, to go up in the ranks? A Noble looking for ancient treasures? Let it give them quests to lost dungeons, and give them information about the treasure they are looking for? A Hidden Society of spies for good? Let them get missions for investigating criminal factions, corrupt nobles, and foul villains, dont get me start on criminal syndicates and heists. Dont let these just be one off missions either, let some missions branch off into greater questlines, that go to dramatic and greater places, multiple locations. Lets say killing one mark for assassination uncovers that the person you killed was a part of a network of Rebels trying to overthrow the kingdom, let them decide if they wanna join those rebels and do jobs for them, or try to wipe them out.
Evolving the Campaign beyond the Hook.
Having these actions, gives the players choices on what should they do during a campaign, and presents them hooks, options, missions, and questlines. And also do not let this be stagnant, the point is these hooks and questlines are a starting point, let them evolve and your PC's evolve the sandbox campaign beyond just the initial mission, let their quests, stories and histories affect the course of the campaign, that is the point of the sandbox campaign, give the players options, and let them decide what they wanna do and how far they want them to go, let each hook themselves lead to a questline, a whole storyline even, that presents other options adventures tied to it. And if the players wish to use this hooks in a unique way, or built their own story from it? Let them, and prep ways for them to do that, let the game evolve, and become something special. Do not reset the actions of the PC's nor do not let certain hooks and threads stagnate, let the world evolve too, let the players own choices change the world and scenarios they encounter.
A Sandbox campaign is not a campaign where players have to sit through a featureless void trying to find content or fun, no, a sandbox campaign is where players are empowered and giving choices on what the next scenario is, and can always dictate what they wish to do with their scenarios and the hooks, and to do this you need to give them choices, and more importantly, a way to get choices. Try to make these hooks nonlinear as well, have multiple scenarios that all hint to each other, to give them a multiple options that lead to the all of the choices, until they hit the conclusion, this makes the game feel way more open with tons of options to get to places.
What are they interested in?
The hardest part from here is getting them interested how do you know what they are engaged with, what type of content you should prep beforehand, well thats easy! What do you think their backstory is for, Its just them outright telling you what they are interested in doing, and what do their characters care about, prep storylines and plotlines out there with it, sandbox campaign isnt them just making up stuff and following their backstories out of nothing, its you MAKING that by putting hooks, storylines, and scenarios, about their backstory, and using the default action to give that to them. This leads me to the next Default action.
Following their backstory. Don't know what to do? Follow their backstory, try tying they backstory to a particular hook, and let that backstory give them tons of adventures, link their backstories as well using this hook too, what if the fighter who is searching for his fathers killer is looking for him in a town where the Cleric, is investigating the Cult of the Murder god, and that killer is a member of that cult. Simple stuff like this can go a long way. What if their backstory isnt that story-driven something more simple like them being a farmboy looking for adventure, people who make backstories like this usually want their past to be their past, and are just along for the ride, so just let them be along for the ride, and they usually will bite on any hook in general, if you really wish them to be invested, try dragging their past to them, like their families farm being attacked due to their actions, dramatic stuff like that. If the character's background choice is being an Artisan, give them hooks about rare materials, or Guild missions, if their backstory is being a Charlatan, give them hooks about con jobs, and people to fool and stuff like that. The hard part is tying this together but this is handled at session 0, but using their backstories for hooks is the point. Use it to generate big epic dramatic Questlines, that engage them, because they made these quests and content themselves.
If they still aren't interested?
Well this usually comes from two problems, one your scenarios hooks aren't interesting enough, a lot of DM's make their hooks really bland, usually "there is an event at a fair" or something thats is just why they are at the location of the adventure, not the dramatic pull "there are monsters attacking the fair", "there are people being murdered in the bilges", "A evil tyrant and his army are talking over the outer lands", you have to make your hooks exciting, and make them say "I wanna do that", Get them excited, and if you bring out all the stops, and they still arent biting. Simply ask them directly, what they are interested in doing, and then prep stuff for them to do it,(or improv on the spot.) Sometimes direct communication is needed as a misunderstanding may be the issue, than give them hooks based on what they were interested in doing, Sandbox campaigns can have a specific goal and them, as long as their is multiple options and questlines, with no set "main" path, it is a sandbox campaign.
Choose the right Default Action
Think about your default action too, picking the right one informs expectations of the story, sometimes pubcrawl around for rumors isnt that exciting, and they wanna kick down the door and get loot, this is where you make the default action "The Dungeon", or they want something more direct, giving them a Patron who makes quests and hooks/content for them to do is good as well, especially if it directly relates to what they want to do. If they want heists, let their patron be a theives guild, if they wish to explore a island, let their Default action, be a Hex/Point crawl, think about this and ask your players what type of adventures they want out of the campaign and make the default actions around that.
Prepwork.
This sounds like a lot of prep? Because it is kinda, but not as much as you think, to prep sandbox campaigns, all you need to do is basically just make "Content", "Content" meaning, Dungeons, Encounters(Social/Combat), Locations, Mysteries, just make about 2-4 ways to inform the PC's about this content, that is all it really takes, you can inform them using? The Default Action, or Random encounters, or tying it to another hook they are interested in(this is how you get questlines).
You just need to Locations keyed and NPCs really. Trying to figure out exactly what choices or scenes, the PC's will have to do to is a fool errand, and wasted prep on choices that wont happen, just focus on NPC's their personality/motivations, and the Locations and Goals involved in whats in those locations, and where they lead too, this can be a few sentences. Also steal from adventures, one shots, and ideas from stories you love, and games you read, throw as much in there as you can and you will can bust out content in no time.
CONCLUSION.
And thats really all i have to say about this, this is how you run a sandbox campaign, and what is needed, sandbox campaigns are not empty voids where the players have the aimlessly wander around nothing to get content, or entertain themselves, Sandbox campaigns are just empowering the PC's to choose what content they wish to do in the world, and giving them multiple choices of that content, and letting them decide the scenario presented, or make new scenarios with what they are interested, its just a matter of making the content they wish to play in, and having a default action to deliver information about whats around to them, or outright get them to that content.
Remember, even in sandbox games, like Skyrim, GTA or Elden Ring. If you don't know what to do, you can always just do the main quest/Dungeon, the "Default Action" which will give you more stuff to do, and will open you to more options outside of the main one along the way, via clues, NPCs, or hooks.
The difference, that makes TTRPGs special, is that there is no true main quest, and any hook, or things the PC's are interested in or want to do, can become the big epic main quest instead, you just need a way to inform them about their options, that is all.
TL;DR. Your sandbox campaigns need a default action to give them meaningful options on how to engage with the campaign if they don't know what options are available, or are not interested in the current options on what to do.
