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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4573101" data-attributes="member: 42582">Once the players have designed their PCs (including background) I set up situations (NPCs, conflicts etc) which open up opportunities for the PCs based on their inclinations/abilities/background. As those situations develop new situations, and new openings for PC activity, open up.I tend to have the participants in a given conflict pretty well pre-determined before a session starts (and most of my session prep is working out the NPCs for that session) but it is up to the players who their PCs will ally with, who they will treat as enemies etc. Normally I find my players fairly predictable in this respect, but sometimes they are not. For example, in my Rolemaster campaign that recently came to an end the party (which inlcuded two Buddhist monks) ended up as enemies of the Lord of Karma and his servants, enemies of one of Demogorgon's heads but quasi-allies of the other, uneasy allies with another demon, allies of Charon and his Charonadaemons, and very close allies of a god who had been exiled ages before for disturbing the workings of karma. They also talked a guardian angel into allowing them to kill her, thereby ending her guard and giving them acces to the exiled god's prison.I didn't anticipate that the players would do these things. (Certainly the modules I was using for some of this - Tales of the Infinite Staircase, Bastion of Broken Souls - don't. Most 2nd ed AD&D and 3E modules are extremely railroady in my experience.) Once they do, however, I'm happy to let them take the lead and then to set up the next situation in response to their choices and the way the encounter resolves.This is not really sandbox play, because it is me as GM who is overwhelmingly responisble for determining what situations are encounterd, but neither is it railroading (in my view) because it is the players getting to decide who are their friends, who their enemies, and how each ingame situation should be resolved.</blockquote>

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