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Message: <blockquote data-quote="neonagash" data-source="post: 6378952" data-attributes="member: 6778280">Meh, I think your wrong about sandboxes needing to be prepped too. I've pretty much exclusively ran sandbox games for years specifically because I dont have a lot of time to prep. I just make it up as I go. Its really not that hard. When the players are looking for something to do just make up a bunch of different rumors, some might be related, some might not. Doesnt matter, the only one you need to do any justification on is the one they actually think is interesting enough to investigate. The others.... meh, who cares? And while they are investigating that one rumor make sure they hear lots of others. Make sure some are totally bogus ( it lends a sense of reality, i mean really why is every tavern drunk with a fish story telling the truth in so much of D&D land? Doesnt make a lick of sense to me. ) My players have learned to take notes of the things they find interesting. For instance in my NWoD hunter game last time the players heard a bunch of rumors and decided to follow up on one from a crazy hunter/ survivalist type one guy knew (totally made up on the spot) about rumors of zombies in a South Dakota town. On the road trip there they stopped in a diner because they passed a "hunter spot" Which is something I made up. Basically loose organisations of hunters got together and developed a mobile app where they can mark a hot spot and leave notes. But being a bunch of crazed vigilantes some arent the best note takers. So because theres only so much interesting to describe on a road trip from Las Vegas to SD I have a spot buzz that just says to avoid the hospital at night in this tiny little town. Zero prep. Naturally players  being players they pull over to investigate and ask around a small diner and get some clues which lead them to conclude its a ghost. (it wasnt at first, but I figured if they have ghosts on the brain then thats bound to be an interesting encounter for them so lets roll with it). I'm all set for a ghost hunt now..... and they ask about the hunter who left the note. Uh oh. No prep, I'm doomed right? Nah. I just spun a story about a slightly bumbling but well meaning ghost hunter who had an encounter one day that showed him the real darkness of the world and thus was a hunter born. Oh and he's got a website with some youtube video's of his old and newer hunts. Now they wanna talk to him, (crap) but its okay because he's dead now. Naturally they want to know how. So instead of going with the obvious and him dying in the hospital.... (screw that cheese, i like mine weirder) he was actually on a treasure hunt for the lost Dutchman mine, and had cameras that amazingly recorded and uploaded video live from deep in a mine. (do they ask about how the heck he did that without a huge budget, crew and logistics? No, they would have I'm sure but instead they wanted to see the video, cool, cue the video) So i describe a video about bumbling but armed treasure hunters wading through waist deep water in an abandoned mine in an undisclosed location in the superstition mountains. Who are then attacked by a difficult to see well (darkness and water) octopus like creature who kills and eats them both, which they naturally heroically fight and lose to. Now the players are hooked. 20 minutes of knowledge checks and some general making stuff totally up on my part and we have a possible race of subterranean octopi, as first described by Jules Verne in a lost chronicle (he was a hunter too) and it probably got there because the earths surface is potentially riddled with caves below the water table, and hey the sea of cortez is not that far from Arizona so it could have come from there, or its relatives, who knows? (why an octopus? I dont know, first thing that came to mind and being trapped with a big ass octopus in a watery cave sounds scary to me.)   They still went to finish the zombie quest (which went hilariously wrong despite/ because of all their seeming best efforts to ensure it would do so) but copious notes were taken by said players on the other two plots and they are already debating which one to follow after healing up. Now as I said I'm running a NWoD hunter game, but we just wrapped a PF game with an AP at its core and did the same thing. Lots of rumors, Lots of weird off quest mischief, including a kobald deliberating throwing an honor duel because he thought the viking wouldnt kill him if didnt fight back (oops, failed that WIS check) a half orc becoming a viking chief and three sessions getting taken up exploring an ancient ruin inhabited by a trapped evil fey, a witch that might or might not be evil but probably not from appearances, and huge, ancient underground levels half flooded (its on the coast and the tides eroded holes to the sea) all spurred by running one week as a side quest because half the party had their car die at the last minute and couldnt make it so I just made up some options for the rest of the party to investigate and this is the one they picked. The only reason they got back on the main story at all was one of the time elements triggered and some of the half orcs new followers got killed, which reminded them of the actual point of coming to that island in the first place So it works fine even with pre-written adventures too.</blockquote>

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