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<blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 6888789" data-attributes="member: 5890">In my experience, players are absolutely fine with a GM making stuff up as they go along, as long as the stuff you make up is interesting and fun. The longer a GM is a GM, the better he gets at doing that. The effort in running something like that is making the world change in the background in response to the PCs actions, and in remembering minor story threads and seemingly insignificant actions so they can come back at a later date.The ideal is that the players don't even know that stuff is being made up.In my opinion, most pre-written modules are far too rigid, segmented and prone to going belly up when the players leave their assigned rails, and while they often do attempt to show the effects of prior actions, doing that effectively requires a personal touch.My advice on running a pre-written sandbox is this:Read through it. Get the gist of what goes on in each location. But most of all: don't fret the details. Make stuff up. Just be confident when you do. If your PCs are dead set on going to the castle, let them. If you were watching a horror movie, would the main characters walk through the front doors of the creepy mansion and immediately be attacked by something which kills them? No. They're probably greeted by the lord of the manor. He's impeccably polite. He feeds them. Something spooky happens at night (possibly an NPC dies). I don't care if the module says you walk through the front door and 10 suits of animated armor attack: that's not where we are in the story yet.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Saeviomagy, post: 6888789, member: 5890"] In my experience, players are absolutely fine with a GM making stuff up as they go along, as long as the stuff you make up is interesting and fun. The longer a GM is a GM, the better he gets at doing that. The effort in running something like that is making the world change in the background in response to the PCs actions, and in remembering minor story threads and seemingly insignificant actions so they can come back at a later date. The ideal is that the players don't even know that stuff is being made up. In my opinion, most pre-written modules are far too rigid, segmented and prone to going belly up when the players leave their assigned rails, and while they often do attempt to show the effects of prior actions, doing that effectively requires a personal touch. My advice on running a pre-written sandbox is this: Read through it. Get the gist of what goes on in each location. But most of all: don't fret the details. Make stuff up. Just be confident when you do. If your PCs are dead set on going to the castle, let them. If you were watching a horror movie, would the main characters walk through the front doors of the creepy mansion and immediately be attacked by something which kills them? No. They're probably greeted by the lord of the manor. He's impeccably polite. He feeds them. Something spooky happens at night (possibly an NPC dies). I don't care if the module says you walk through the front door and 10 suits of animated armor attack: that's not where we are in the story yet. [/QUOTE]

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