Open ended Campaigns are possible ?

[Zappo]

I have attempted a completely character-driven game. I would give the players a sort of newspaper every in-game week or so, which contained short pieces about interesting things going on in the campaign, ads, letters, and so on. The players thus could investigate some weird happening, or answer a call for arms, or do something else. If they read about, say, an unexplained murder, and they don't do anything about it (choosing to go for a bounty instead), within a few issues of the paper someone else would solve the problem - though by that time, a dozen more problems will have surfaced.

It didn't quite work. Some of the players are too lazy to read the paper, some others just sit waiting for someone to tell them what to do, but the biggest problem was that eventually everyone got something different to do, fragmenting the party and forcing me to deal with one player at a time. On top of that, one player simply got his character a regular job and did just that, ignoring adventures.

Eventually, I decided for a mixed approach. I still give out the paper, but I also keep a premade plot handy for when I see that the players are losing focus.

 

[Rashak Mani]

This "led by the nose" approach is so normal that when the evil group we play in was trying to ambush the goodie group my first plan was about "Giving them a Quest" ! Basically one of the group in disguise would set them up with a "typical D&D adventure hook".

It probably would have worked wonders... after all players are so used to the "We need help" line...

Now I remember some cases in which certain people had too much character background and wanted 100% DM attention to their own little subplot. Thou the group was cohesive this person ended up splitting the group... spoiled for everyone.

Pity... character driven campaigns can be a lot of fun...