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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6303793" data-attributes="member: 4937">While I agree to some extent with the exception to the general rule, even then I'd recommend caution.a) If you have proactive players, make sure you've discussed ahead of time with your players your intention to sit back and let them find something to do.b) Make sure you don't have a rowboat world.  If you are going to let the players play in a sandbox, don't expect them to build everything on their own.  There should still be plenty of things that they can choose to become involved in immediately.  It shouldn't require rowing across the ocean to find something interesting to do and you as the DM shouldn't expect interesting things to just happen.  One common difficulty I encounter with improve type DMs expecting players to be proactive is they often punish attempts to be proactive in the name of 'realism' (where realism in this case is often a synonym for the DM's lack of preparation), leaving players hesitant to try anything.  In practice, this ends up with the players just going with the flow to a far greater degree than they would have in an adventure path, all the while with the DM thinking he's letting players choose.  c) It's probably even smarter to still use some initial hooks, but to plan those hooks to have fairly short term or at least indefinite resolutions rather than be part of long term plots that demand some sort of action.  It's still worth dangling some clues as to the sort of conflicts that the party can get involved in, you just back off of making these mandatory longer term goals.  That natural disaster could just be a natural disaster.  That invasion could just be a spring raiding party, and not a sign of greater things to come.  And so forth.  Life can still be interesting without necessarily steering the players toward anything in particular.</blockquote>

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