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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 6180336" data-attributes="member: 3192">First, sandbox play is about a world full of options. However, that world begins very, very small. Exploration is almost the whole campaign, so the world will become larger for them as they explore. The need to explore comes from desire. When they want to accomplish something they can look around to see how it is already being done by people or the world (a form of treasure) or get creative and do it themselves. This is the game's mix of enabling both exploratory problem solving and creative solutions. Remember though, any creation the Players create feeds back into the world altering it and informing the populace as well. Options, sooner or later, are going to become too big for them to handle them all. Superman can't solve every crisis in the world, so you might suggest not every challenge is up to them and them alone. In terms of world design, think: balanced array of Alignment creatures. Cities and dungeons and lots of neutral territory as well. That's the standard, sort of Points of Light design.The players are going to forget things. Part of the game is enabling them to succeed through memory and note taking. The character sheet was originally called a log after all. It's their campaign, so it's their chance to build a wiki kind of. Only as much or as little as they desire and however they wish to design it. Remember, this isn't the DM's copy of the maps though. Back in the early 80's there were articles on this strange new game where players seemed to engaged in duplicate tax accounting or whatever the phrase is. That's in part due to players logging exploration.Besides building a world around the real and proverbial edges for the PCs to roam in I'd also suggest a starter campaign adventure that asks them to be in charge of themselves right away. One very good way of doing this that I've learned is putting them in charge. Give the PCs authority over a location, property, and even people/NPCs. They are looking to them on what to do. Of course putting them at the entrance to the dungeon doesn't hurt either. The standard design of dungeon delving is copied by plenty of videogames. Delve down deeper and more deadly, but judge when to try and get back out. And have a town or allied portion of the world accessible to be safe, heal up, buy and sell necesssities, hire or earn allies, and so on. Caves of Chaos / Keep on the Borderlands with wilds in between is the original design for this.Lastly, think of the whole as a intermix of situations, but each adventure module largely starting in its own web. Yes, NPCs, locations, and everything else will get mixed in with the others in the area. One NPC may learn from the PCs where a cleared out dungeon is and go and secretly inhabit it if run out of their own. Two enemies might learn of each other and possibly, according to alignment, team up. Not necessarily against the PCs or PCs alone, but any who may oppose them.</blockquote>

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