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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 2746053" data-attributes="member: 19675">I've been running my campaigns open-ended since 1990, the first one was a Superheroic campaign set in the Wellsian/Vernian/Space: 1889 world, using HERO 4th.The best tools I've found so far to help an open campaign run like a well tuned machine are these:1)  Detailed PC backgrounds.  They help integrate the PCs into the world and gives you plot hooks.  If you have a particularly gifted writer among your players, you'll probably get a gold mine of ideas.In that first campaign, I got player backgrounds involving an orphaned Atlantean unaware of her origins, a  British noble "slumming" playing strongman, an American Secret Agent a la Wild Wild West, and so forth.They also provided me with a list of virtual NPCs who either loved, hated or depended on their PCs in some way.2)  Some kind of physical (or email) memo that serves as a campaign news-sheet...and I mean that literally.  The first time I tried this, it was the "in-house newspaper" for the organization to which the PCs belonged.  The next time, it was a representation of the Town Hall's message board.In it, detail the rumors and official notices that PCs would hear or be aware of, including news of their exploits, consequences of their exploits, and other news of the world that would be of interest to the PC's organization.3)  Your ears.  Listen to your players' table talk and discussion about the various plot points you've laid around them like Easter Eggs.In my gaslight supers campaign, the players would read the blurbs and openly speculate about the rumors.  Sometimes their ideas were better than mine, or they added a plot twist I hadn't considered...*YOINK!* it entered the campaign.  Stuff they generally ignored tended to dissapear from the headlines, or vanish completely.How well did this work?  Brilliantly!  It was like networking a bunch of Cray Supercomputers.After an initial story arc involving plots cribbed from Michael Moorcock books, James Bond movies, Alien Nation, and a couple of other locations, I didn't have to search for another adventure idea for 3 years.  My players' idle speculations drove the campaign.They did the sketchwork, I just did the coloring in.  It was eeeeeeeeeeeeeeaasy.By way of contrast, the campaigns I've done where I haven't used a "news sheet" have been poorer in comparison...  Sometimes, the players lose interest; I occasionally have writer's block...its just simply (and counterintuitively) more work.</blockquote>

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