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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haltherrion" data-source="post: 1902105" data-attributes="member: 18253">I used to referee completely open games where I'd spend ridiculous amounts of time preparing the world (I still have book-length settings lying around from those days). With the right players who put in significant out of game time thinking about the game and working up things like holdings and so on, it worked well. Trouble for me was that there came a time when my players for the most part were just there for the game session and our gaming rate fell to less than twice per month. Both effects made for a game group that had trouble sustaining interest and momentum on their own. There was a period where I still enjoyed the world creation and the open campaign but most of my players were starting to get bored. Once I realized that my players were not getting all the enjoyment they could out of the game, I became much more active in providing story. That's not to say that player actions do not affect the story or that I send them down a linear path but I do provide a general arc to the campaign. These have been my awesome campaigns where the players remember not just isolated moments (as they do from the open campaigns) but entire story arcs and talk about them like they do a good movie. Open campaign settings can work and when the factors are right can produce memorable campaigns but they can also produce aimless, forgetable campaigns. IME, the latter is more likely than the former. For refs trying to decide between the two approaches, I wouldn't assume that open is better than "plotted". Open may seem more appealing because it empowers the players but the game group needs to be ready to be that empowered.</blockquote>

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