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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7037472" data-attributes="member: 20564">It looks like there's been some editing, removing stuff about DM controlling character creation.  I can't see what it is, I'm just addressing this as it is now.This sounds a bit like the first long-term campaign I was in, or rather what it grew into.  Well, partially, and I'll get to the differences.While I had played red box Basic & Expert, my first multi-year D&D campaign was later in the AD&D era.  I joined a game that had already been running in the Forgotten Realms, which had the concept of "Adventuring Company Charters" which were expensive and hard to get to.  The original group, now mid-to-high level (name level, around 9th, but advancement slowed WAY down there so it would be forever going up each level from there.)Anyway, they decided to fund new groups under the aegis of their charter, becoming "The Company of the Unicorn:  The 'Adventuring Company' Company" and started up a new group, with some of the original players and some new players including me.Now, you're describing was pure sandbox, and we weren't quite that.  The DM would have plots that we could follow up or not, usually more then we could handle at any particular point.  But the plots that we didn't follow up on would advance.  Maybe others dealt with it, or maybe it got worse.  Plus there would be DM-imposed plots like enemies of the founders coming after us, or a war that broke out affecting us all.  The world was very rich.See, the DM also ran other groups in different parts of the same world.  And ripples from adventures we did (and didn't) do would spread to the other groups.  And then there was also that some players were also in some of the other groups.  Lots of cross-pollination.  And then we got to the point where the main all-day-Saturday group would have several simultaneous campaigns going on in different places in the Realms depending on which players showed up.  "No Dave?  We can play the Dwarves."  And of course these all cross-pollinated as well, characters ending up in different groups as well as splitting up and making new ones.  (AD&D & AD&D 2nd were a lot more forgiving about adventuring with different level characters in the party.  Heck, the different classes didn't even have the same XP charts.)But as we all got to higher levels teleportation magic and other ways of communicating and covering distances became easy.  The Company of the Unicorn had fame across multiple nations and most groups had either someone who once was in it, or had adventured alongside members.  We ended up being a huge pool of characters that would mix and match based on interests or location.  The DM would feed us hooks for adventures but half the time we'd be like "we want to go follow that treasure map we found a bunch of sessions ago" or "We want to go back to Myth Drannor and kill demons."So we weren't pure sandbox but we were more self-directing then not, and it grew a lot more organically then you are putting forth, but it shares enough similarities.And for something even more crazy, me and many of those players (and the DM) were in a Champions superhero game where everyone had as many characters as they liked, across a bunch of groups that often worked at cross purposes, and people were also free to create vigilantes and _villains_.  I swear that well over half the plots and 99% of the drama came from character inspired plots.  It was glorious, but I have no idea how the DM kept it all clear.  It might have been more of a grab the tiger by the tail and hold on for the ride.My current campaign (3 years and going) and last two (12 years between them) have really been high-mythic, travelogue, high RP, shades of grey campaigns.  I've strongly considered my next as a riff on the megadungeon for a change of pace, a real grind where each player gets a stable of three characters and the non-active ones get half XP from whoever you are playing.  The setting would be a non-euclidian tower that opens up (briefly and unpredicably) on various planes and everyone there are refugees from planes that Darkness has overtaken - as it seems to be in the process of taking over every plane.  Adventures would be choices from where the portals are open right now with a faction-filled but resource-starved home base of the tower which has it's own mysteries.  So while it adventure choices would be limited to the currently open portal (to contain my prep needs), t would be a rotating roster, each that also has their own goals and needs on these trips.</blockquote>

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