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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8157634">So it is traditional, in that as GM, I establish much of the setting material before hand: geography, key locations, towns, sects, NPCs, religions, etc. I've been running a lot of wuxia so my main setting is a fantasy Chinese analog modeled roughly after the Song Dynasty period (but it includes more supernatural elements and horror elements than is common in most wuxia). The players make their characterrs (they can do what they want, but are encouraged to be members of a sect or at least a martial arts lineage----you do get the occasional "but I learned it on my own on a mountain somewhere" guy and that is fine too. Then I ask the group why the party is together. They wouldn't do anything like create setting details, but like I said before, reasonable stuff about family and goals is fine (that gray area I mentioned before). Usually this is phrase like "Can I be the son of a sect leader who is looking to avenge his enemy". This can get more specific  of course. But typically they ask so I can recommend a good sect that fits what they are looking for, and if the thing they want doesn't exist we might hash it out if it feels okay for the setting.Once the party is together I usually choose a starting point (or they do----they might say "Can we start in Daolu to get into the local tournament"---Daolu is a city famous for having tournaments in the setting. But once they are there I let them do whatever they want. So one group I had started in a frontier region called the Banyan, where they basically tried to make their way up in the Jianghu.  I didn't really plan anything in advance, they would just go around looking for named people to beat to enhance their reputation. Then they would look for rumors or information on places to find manuals and riches (this was a group focused on building up their power in the martial world). Eventually they decided to go to an Inn, called the Ogre Gate Inn, which is my version of the Dragon Gate inn. Beneath the inn was a complex with a powerful cursed creature. I don't recall all the details but after what I thought would be just a stop at an inn or a dungeon delve, they took over the inn and made it their base of operations (this, took a number of sessions), and worked with the creature below, coming to an arrangement.A lot happened in this campaign. I believe this eventually led them into conflict with imperial forces as they were in a border region, but would have to review my notes to see the details. I believe they ended up forming a bunch of alliances, sorting out an arrangement with the emperor and officially relocating their sect at the top of a mesa where they officially formed their own sect, which one of the players became the chief of. Once this happened, the campaign became more political, and the players began setting goals like finding a suitable marriage wife or husband so they could have children. This sect became a kind of focus for two or three campaigns that was multi-generational. I should say, there was plenty of dungeon delving between (often players would want something themselves or they would want to get the aid of an NPC, and to obtain it, find out what that person wanted or desired (and this would lead them to old temples, tombs, etc). But there was also a bit of sect conflict (sometimes conflicts they started, sometimes begun by other sects or as an outgrowth of their sect's activities).Sometimes campaigns will begin with more of a premise though. I ran one inside the empire where the players would be criminals and part of an organization called the 87 Killers. So I told them before hand, I want you all to be people trying to join this group. To get into the group they did have to go on an initial mission to prove themselves, that was assigned by Lady 87. But after that, with an exception here or there if she needed something, they were basically operating like gangsters taking their own initiative to make riches and send tribute to Lady 87. The more they helped the 87 killers, the more they earned, they higher they rose through the ranks (though it did get a bit intrigue heavy, as there are a finite number of ranked positions and you basically need people to die to advance). At the set up, one of the players wanted to be married to the daughter of Lady 87, which I allowed (especially since it came with some serious downsides). The others wanted to be two brothers who were the sons of an apothecary (so we had them be the sons of an apothecary and his wife in a nearby village). They pretty much went around coming up with heists, finding goods to sell on the black market, etc. Eventually they had a spat with a rival group, an escort agency that was on the side of the law, and this led to a low grade sect conflict. I did introduce some dramatic elements of my own.I usually call my style drama and sandbox, which is total freedom to explore but I am not affraid to throw in stuff for drama here and there (and the players can react however they want to it). I also use what I call the twenty year backstory in my campaigns---something modeled after stuff you see in Jin Yong novels and in a lot of other wuxia. Basically I had set up a backstory where there were a number of heroes twenty years ago in the region who fought against the empire but were betrayed Pei Mei style (complete with a burning temple). A nun from that temple, Saffron Tigress, like many others, went into hiding, and assumed a false identity marrying a local apothecary who used to work as a smuggler for the rebels (this was the mother and father of the two players). The players learned about this after they had formed a network with a local criminal named Iron God Meng, who bought shipments of a drug they were smuggling. Iron God Meng was a former disciple of Saffron Tigress (whom he thought was dead) and he explained some of the backstory to the party after his connecting to the party led to a meeting with her. I don't often do the secret PC past thing, but in wuxia campaigns it is more of a genre trope, so I am fine with it occasionally.The reason for this long description of the backstory and events, is because when the party found out, they decided to abandoned their criminal ways and fight the empire. This wasn't where I 'wanted' the campaign to go. I wanted a criminal empire campaign. I had done the backstory mainly just to give them some drama and maybe add a little internal conflict. So the campaign completely changed direction once they decided to go the other way.For me, as long as the PCs are doing something, I don't really care what they do.Hope this answers the question. Know I have an atrocious memory and many of these things happened a while ago, so it is very possible I got details wrong or blended details together that were separate things (there are some actual play sessions of the Lady Eighty Seven campaign on my podcast, and the other campaign, I kept a log of on my blog).I should add, this all sometimes requires that I invent things on the fly too. My general approach is to rely on established material in the setting and work logically from there. But if players ask "Is there a blind merchant in the town", for something that random, I usually quickly arrive at an answer or leave it to a random die roll, and if the answer is 'there is'. I take a moment to quickly decide key details about him and write those down----like to keep a notebook for this sort of thing. It might be mundane or it could be more involved with adventure potential. But mostly I focus on what the character wants, who they are connected to, etc.Couple of other things: my games are pretty informal in my opinion. I also get lazy and handwavy sometimes. So I will sometimes shift how I do things for expediency for example. I also don't mind explaining my behind the screen rationale from time to time (just so the players get a sense of how I think about this stuff----don't do it all the time, but I have problem with that kind of transparency periodically). EDIT: also, one important thing I should mention, while I have my ideas about what makes a good campaign and adventure structure, I am a big believer in focusing on what actually works at the table. That means responding to the types of players you have. In one of those campaigns I had a couple of players who loved setting agendas for their characters and going after them in terms of building up power and wealth, but I had two other players who were more into going on quests and facing supernatural forces, as well as things like seeking insight from supernatural entities. So while I didn't let them generate this content, I did make sure such content was present in the setting for them to go after from time to time. So we ended up with a campaign that was a balance between those two things, and we were not affraid to split the party when the group wanted to explore different thing. That campaign log eventually became podcasts of the sessions, this is the last one I have up (not sure how many sessions we had after this one): <a href="http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/disposable-disciples-session-81.html" target="_blank">DISPOSABLE DISCIPLES SESSION 81</a></blockquote>

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