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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 4862863" data-attributes="member: 2205">In my current campaign, if the world needs saving, it's because of the PC's own careless choices early on.  They've actually taken a fairly static world and created a situation in which it's no longer static.  They're the ones who willingly took service with a demon-queen and did things for her (and for themselves) without asking any questions about what the possible consequences would be.Granted, maybe anyone could have done this, and the world would be in the same place either way, but it was the PC's that did it.Did I mention earlier that I'm a bit of a bastard that way?In any case, I really don't think any of my players would tell you they feel railroaded.  The campaign hasn't really been about anything that I thought it might be when they started.  They've had extraordinary freedom to pursue the goals that they think are interesting, and I've been quite the enabler in that regard.  It is possible to have a "narrative sandbox" where the PCs decide what they're doing, but it's not "explore the next hex to the east" or whatever.For the point noted above, that PCs don't have anything in common, or any reason to adventure together, I've often seen that problem as well, and we've had to handwave it away a bit with a "this is the adventure; if we don't engage it, we don't have a game" metagame consideration.  There is, however, a very nice little subsystem that I borrowed from Spirit of the Century that can address this problem.  I used it in my current campaign, and I think it worked brilliantly.It works more or less as such.  You write down each character's name twice on chits, and put all the chits in a cup.  Each player draws two chits, making sure he doesn't have his own.  For each other character that he draws, he writes a quick small paragraph---no more than 3-5 sentences or so---summary of an adventure that his character and that character participated in at some point in the past.  Kinda like the blurb on the back cover of a paperback novel.  Because each character is tied specifically to at least two other characters, by the time you've done this, you have a nice web of past history between all your characters, that makes it logical that they would get together.You still need some kind of opening hook, the "narrow" opening, but it happens much more smoothly using that method, in my experience.  There's no more of the throwing your hands in the air because you have to ignore the character and his motivations as you envisioned them just because otherwise there wouldn't be any game; you've got some reasons before you even start for why you'd adventure together.</blockquote>

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