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<blockquote data-quote="Gilladian" data-source="post: 5404758" data-attributes="member: 2093">I play a fairly sandboxy game. I have a large city (Ptolus, slightly modified) over a huge dungeon... and I have several rivalries set up for my PCs to discover, and to take up, if they so desire.My current group has decided to devote themselves to creating a zoo and a tech-school of sorts. So I keep dropping leads to things that interest them, and they weed through them and pick what they like.At the same time, I'm building a crime-lord who hates them, and an insane mass murderer who thinks they work for him (he's in prison, for now...). Whenever I think the plot needs thickening, one or the other of them sticks an oar in. What the PCs do in return is up to them.One of the group&nbsp; is also supporting an orphanage; the crime-lord is going to take advantage of this weakness. But if the PCs suddenly abandoned the orphans and went off in another direction, I'd move with them. My trick to running a sandbox is to repurpose everything. A thug can be a bandit, an alleybasher, a pickpocket, or a kidnapper with very minor changes. A half-dozen sets of stats for commoners and experts can be bartenders, fences, moneylenders, news-agents and bar-brawlers as well. A dungeon can go from being the mad wizard's lab to being the crime-lord's drug den with very little change; just recolor the rooms a little, and instead of abberations and oozes, define the monsters as magical beasts and dire animals. Of course, it is easier to do with a few days to prepare rather than five minutes, but I've done it both ways and had it work.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gilladian, post: 5404758, member: 2093"] I play a fairly sandboxy game. I have a large city (Ptolus, slightly modified) over a huge dungeon... and I have several rivalries set up for my PCs to discover, and to take up, if they so desire. My current group has decided to devote themselves to creating a zoo and a tech-school of sorts. So I keep dropping leads to things that interest them, and they weed through them and pick what they like. At the same time, I'm building a crime-lord who hates them, and an insane mass murderer who thinks they work for him (he's in prison, for now...). Whenever I think the plot needs thickening, one or the other of them sticks an oar in. What the PCs do in return is up to them. One of the group is also supporting an orphanage; the crime-lord is going to take advantage of this weakness. But if the PCs suddenly abandoned the orphans and went off in another direction, I'd move with them. My trick to running a sandbox is to repurpose everything. A thug can be a bandit, an alleybasher, a pickpocket, or a kidnapper with very minor changes. A half-dozen sets of stats for commoners and experts can be bartenders, fences, moneylenders, news-agents and bar-brawlers as well. A dungeon can go from being the mad wizard's lab to being the crime-lord's drug den with very little change; just recolor the rooms a little, and instead of abberations and oozes, define the monsters as magical beasts and dire animals. Of course, it is easier to do with a few days to prepare rather than five minutes, but I've done it both ways and had it work. [/QUOTE]

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