Open ended Campaigns are possible ?

[Painfully]

Rashak:

Are you saying you want the players to run their own game?

The players determine their PCs. That includes PC motivations, desires, fears, and how far they are willing to go to reach towards or run away from those things.

DMs determine those same things for NPCs. Pick out a picnic spot (i.e. a place on the map) and just imagine what happens when the NPCs decide to settle into their home and do their thing.

Now add plot hooks. DMs and players both use plot hooks so that they can get into the story and let things unfold. Are you saying DMs should not do this in an open-ended campaign?

What game are you playing? Solo RPG?

Nobody has to force anything. But you need reasons for the interesting things like adventures to happen, and that means a plot hook is going to happen...it helps if they are kinda "in there" somewhere, and that is something that DMs should be doing as part of their duties.

 

[Happy Monkey]

I am having a little difficulty with my players regarding the plots. Basically I am wanting them to take a more active lead but they are proving indecisive.

Currently I play my adventures in two weekly session lots. The first session is getting a hook that will fit and by the second session I have a dungeon, wilderness, npcs etc all statted and ready to go.

My problem is that the pc's are not united in their goals and it is the first session that proves painful. They have unified somewhat recently as I have decided that I will only pander adventures to a majority, that and a constantly out of sync character will be retired.

I do have a background plot that is advancing along that ultimately will be unavoidable due to its breadth in scope. But I hate adventures where the pc's hang out in taverns waiting for the mayor to rush in with a problem and a bag of loot.

If one of my players come to me with an adventure idea AND it is one that involves the others, well that really makes my day. Just a general desire to achieve something interesting, then I can get to work preparing surprises...

 

[Brisk-sg]

Hello all,

For my next campaign, I am taking a sort of middle ground between being "led by the nose" and being "open ended". I am developing multiple NPC's, subplots, and events that have no relation to the main plot line to use if the Player's Decide to go in a different route or to ignore the main plot line all together.

I am doing this for the simple reason that I have resources that I don't have to wing; such things as details for a large town the player's only should be passing through. But just in case I have 20+ locations detailed out.

If the player's do plan on ignoring the main plot line, there will be consequences however. The rise and fall of nations can occur because of the player's ignoring the main plot line and there "responsibilities". The main plot lines I create are normally based around the role of the PCs in their society so that they won't have much reason to ignore the adventure and reek havoc on my time consuming planning.

But if the player's want to go a certain way I will not discourage it or attempt to rail road them. I will go with the flow, use what resources I have prepared ahead of time, and wing the rest.

-Josh

 

[Ulrick]

My Greyhawk Campaign is fairly well character driven.

Although there is a central plotline, they have many options to choose from. I don't coax them into any direction.

When planning adventures, I always ask them "What do you want to do? What are your goals as a group?"

If the players have a good backgrounds written up for their characters it helps answer those questions a lot easier.

However, as its been mentioned in a previous post, the central plotline will continue without the PCs intervention.

And there is a time limit before something really aweful happens.
At this point, they don't know how bad things might get....

*Evil DM Laugh*

One thing that I've noticed in a character driven campaign is that each session must end with a sense of accomplishment to keep the players motivated. Have mini-goals for them to accomplish.

One thing I like best about a character driven game is that it actually makes my job as a DM easier. There are points where the game seems to "run itself," not me, the DM. The players almost become storytellers themselves.


Ulrick

 

[Emiricol]

My campaigns are PC-driven. Obviously, I have to give them the circumstances, but I only give them situations, not plots. The PCs are likely to try things on the fly during adventures, and I as DM just try to figure out ways to make the story interesting and figure out consequences & results.

Sort of "free-form" but with dice and a DM-controlled world.

 

[Creamsteak]

I'm a young DM who never quite got the opportunity to lead by the nose. I instantly told my players, "look, if your not willing to push your own character to go do something, and your going to complain about it when you get caught up riding another player's tail, leave."

If a player can provide his own motivation to interact with the world (the ONLY thing I provide), then he can do just that. If a player doesn't say a word the entire session (accept maybe joking with whoever his friend that brought him was), I'd like to say, "don't come back."

The problem with creating a character motivated game (the only kind of game I can fully enjoy playing/running), is actually 95% player responsibility to take it upon themselves to write the plot. That IS the way this game should be played (IMHO). Player motivated plots are actually quite a bit easier to please people with, as long as you (DM) are careful enough to "weave" everyone's threads together.

Step 1) Character concepts: I use different methods every time, but basically I require the players to dig DEEP into thier characters motivations till the come out with the whole emotional state of thier character. Once a player has his emotional state that his mind needs to be in when playing his character available, he can call it at whim. It's like going from first level to third level, all of a sudden you have the power to cast a totally new spell and do something completely different.

Step 2) Stat blocks. Simple enough... Players who really followed step 1 probably have more diverse skills than players who start right here.

Step 3) Get them to write it down. You need a hard copy and a week as a DM to do step 3. Your job here is to take every single "hook" and weave together a web. The web should overlap multiple times, with NPCs that multiple players know, locations that multiple players have visited, adventures that could have similar themes (the NPC from one background, and the treasure horde from another background). This step is awesome to look at when you get a final copy.

Step 4) You, as the person that knows everything in step 3, need to figure out how the party gets together best. They can't really find that motivation on thier own, it's difficult to do for them till after you get this done.

Step 5) Your finally ready (or should be) for that first session. Until either the characters die, or the characters retire, you should be able to play through.

I've done this multiple times. I only manipulate the steps 3 and 4, and have nothing to do with 1 and 2. The players write the story, not me.

 

[Tonguez]

Islands are wonderful

Islands give you (and the PCs) a defined limit as to where they can go until such time as you as DM are ready to take them off island.

Me I run a very open 'character-driven' campaign and do so by creating an environment (ie my island) and populating it with various native beasts and races (goblins, gnomes a family of ogres and a Sahuagin lair in the offshore reef imc). Those goblins and gnomes have there own culture and history and sites of significance (the one that has been used in game is the gnome burial mounds, and the Sacred Pool in which lives a Fiendish giant eel)

Okay the first adventure was me introducing them to the campaign world and a very plot driven game (the Human/Half-elf/Half-orc and half-giant PCs were newly arrived and had to locate an Artifact)

Once that was finished however were asked ic to build a village and since building the villages they have been allowed to do what they want - making peace with the gnomes, beating the goblins into retreat, hunting, exploring, building an irrigation system for the crops (and having to access water from the mountain Spirits Sacred pools) etc.

As for my part I get to do with the Island and its indigenous races whatever I choose. So the Sahuagin will make raids, the gnomes sacrifice goblins to their Eel-god, an occasional monster will attack hunting parties, sharks will appear in the lagoon, the crops will get blighted and the storm gods will throw a hurricaine at the island all of these of course creating potential plot hooks.

One day the PCs may go off and visit another Island or perhaps underwater against the Sahuagin. They have already made contact with one other Island (this one inhabited by Lizard folk)

The World at large also has an uberplot which may or may not affect the PCs. Basically that Uber-Plot is that the Lord of Evil is trying to open the gatesto hell and invade the World, However to do so he requires 5 sacred artifacts of power which are scattered around the world, he has various agents and a cult of Zealots who are searching for these artifacts and sacrificing souls to their god as they go. These Zealots may oneday come to the PCs Island (but not for a very long time)

If the PCs ever travel to the right place and come into possession of one of the artifacts however then they will draw the attention of the Lord of Evil. If they never locate these items then they need never even know the Uber-plot exists.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Rashak, if you're unhappy with how your DM is running your game, tell him you think the characters should have more input. If he/she can, it'll let you have more control over the campaign. If not, (probably because of time constraints or inexperience) then maybe someone else could step up and DM for a while giving the characters more of a free rein.

 

[CobaltGrC]

I do

I run a complete open ended game, and this is because I am really good at improvising when I need to.

The only form I have to my game is the world itself and small notes I take before game.(which I do 15 minutes before I start DMing) I try to fill my world with alot of small events that don't directly envolve the players unless they happen to stumble apon them. Then it is thier choice to get envolved or if they want to just move on.

My Tips for an open ended game is to take a note book and begin writing down a number of names(names are extremely important) for cities, npcs, orginizations, Alliances, Gods, ships, other adventurers, dugeons, mountains, forests, lakes, other terran, events in history, events to come, etc, etc... and then write a small little description consisting of two words to one sentence (I supose one could call this a hook) which is the basic reason for, drive, or want of this name.

Some of my most memorable NPC's came from this list, and were developed further by interaction with the PC's... have them become reacuring characters to add more depth, and then improvise to smooth out the edges so your PC's are none the wiser. This to me works very well, there is no reason to completely detail out ever little.... detail, because the Players are exploring the world and have no idea how big or little certian things are and it is up to them to discover this.. So if the PC's want to get to know more about a certian subject this will be thier adventure. I as the DM will improvise, detail, and bounce the hook off the players as I go along.

Ofcourse sometimes things need more detail, like dungeons, so map those out and fill them with creatures and traps for the players to explore...

Yes.

 

[Chrisling]

I've run open-ended games. In addition to what has already been said about them, there are a few other things that really help.

Ask the players in downtime where they intend to go. This lets you have some prep time. Second, uh, shift some of the burden for these things to <i>them</i>. When the PC goes up to the bartender to get some information, don't flip through a book to find a name, say to the <i>player</i>, "What's his name?"

You can construct whole games this way, by the way. Seriously. True story:

I was running a Changeling game where I was experimenting with this sort of stuff. The PCs had just climbed a shaft of ice and reached a huge ice cave. I said, "You hear wings above you." Then I look at one of the players and say, "Steve, what is making the sound?"

Steve said, "An ice dragon." People boggled, I laughed, and Steve said, "It was the first thing I thought of any anything else would have been wimping out."

So it was an ice dragon that came flapping down.

My point here being that if you have good players, players that are really interested in telling a cool story and not just stroking their own egos that a canny GM can ask players ANYTHING and incorporate it into the game!