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Message: <blockquote data-quote="leporidae" data-source="post: 2645703" data-attributes="member: 19624">One of the basic decisions, in my opinion, in setting up a campaign is whether it will be internally or externally motivated. Perhaps that's a useful way of looking at this decision. A standard "Heroic" campaign is an example of an internally motivated campaign - things happen in the game because of a property of the characters - "Goodness". If you drop that central motivation, but don't make any other adjustments the problem is how to keep the campaign together as a group game. You need to figure out why these characters would stay together for an extended period of time if they don't have any goals other than gathering resources for themselves. Probably the simplest example of an externally motivated campaign is that the characters are physically isolated in a location where their only option is to work together, like a small town surrounded by wilderness. (i.e., The Keep on the Borderlands, an oldie but goodie). They could be isolated in some other way for example, the only dwarves in a human kingdom. Or they could have something in common that binds them together - family ties, on the run from the same archmage, employees of the same trade guild...Also discussing (and perhaps getting input from) the players prior to starting the campaign will help the structure to fade into the background, so you get the advantage of a way to keep things moving and the characters together, without it feeling like railroading to the players.</blockquote>

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