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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 6507580" data-attributes="member: 66434">At the core, a sandbox style campaign needs two main ingredients to be successful. The first is players who are motivated to discover the setting and are looking for adventure opportunities. The second is a living world in motion, populated by people and monsters that have goals and desires. Original D&D worked great in a sandbox style because the default premise of play was adventurers seeking fame and fortune. An adventurer didn't get rich sitting around waiting to get pulled into some intrigue or foul plot that may or may not bring a payday. An adventurer frequented places where rumors of dangerous adventures rewarded by fabulous wealth were plentiful. After hearing enough tall tales and rumors, the adventurer decided which opportunity had the best risk/reward ratio for them and followed up on it. Self motivation was the key. If not treasure and fame, then something needs to motivate an adventurer to find out more about adventure opportunities and not just sit around a tavern until they are approached by an old man with a mission of dire importance. The world in motion takes a bit of prep work, but it is well worth it. The workload can be kept very manageable by restricting the scope to the immediate campaign starting area. You don't have to decide the motivations of a world full of people at once. Just decide on what you want in the campaign starting area and detail that. Who lives where? What do they want to accomplish? This is the time to establish motivations and plots that certain individuals & groups are involved in. The friendly monks at the brewery are secretly a demon worshipping cult and are kidnapping children and sacrificing them in unholy rituals. This is part of established ongoing events in the area and an opportunity for adventurers to get involved and disrupt their plans. As a DM the things to work out are who is involved, how do they carry out these activities without getting caught, and what will happen if nothing is done to stop them and when.  Lets say the campaign begins on date X. Assuming everything goes to plan, enough children will be killed to summon a demon on date Y which will ravage the town. Now you have a rough timeline of what will happen without assuming any actions by the players. Once this little timeline map is done for a dozen or so different goings on in the area, you will see possible connections between them begin to develop. This is good. In a living world, plots and events do not live in a vacuum. Things people do affect others sometimes indirectly and without specific intent. My campaign calendar is full of things that may or may not happen depending on the actions of the players. In order for the actions of the player characters to have real meaning, then things have to have a chance to turn out very differently should they decide to involve themselves in something. Without a good idea of what will happen if they DON'T, their actions are more or less meaningless. There is plenty of room for story and drama in a sandbox setting without it needing to be orchestrated and tightly controlled by the DM.</blockquote>

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