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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BiggusGeekus" data-source="post: 2057434" data-attributes="member: 1014">What you can do is simply decide what the big picture is going to be before the start of the campaign.  You'll need a single column table going from -X to +Y with the campaign starting at the zero mark.  Now write in what happens in each box.  If the PCs do nothing, the counter slides to -X and the world goes all blowy-uppy.  If the PCs take direct action, they'll be moving things to the +Y mark and get a ticker-tape parade.The DM then has to decide how fast things will slide to -X.  I'm a fan of doing it on level up and/or two month's time.  That way if the PCs go on a cruise things deteriorate and if they go dungeon crawling for the phat l3wts things deteriorate.Now, in the third paragraph of this post, I address your point. (nice of me, huh?) Figure out what events will move things in the +Y direction.  Make the list big.  Put violent and non-violent goals in there.  A violent goal could be putting the smackdown on a few of the BBEG's lieutennants.  A non-violent goal could be creating a magic item that the BBEG's minions are vulnerable to (e.g. a dragonlance).  It's still open ended, no railroading, and you the DM have an idea what he PCs are going to do because they end up telling you and you get to write the adventure they want to play.It works well, or at least it did for me.</blockquote>