D&D 5E Status Quo Campaigns

[Rabbitbait]

I run a mixture lazy DM/sandbox/multi-junction railroad style. I might have to coin a phrase for that.

Step 1: Decide the area that the adventures are going to take place and work out the underlying politics and events that are likely to happen. Try and have three overarching plot arcs so that there is always something going on in the background, even if the characters are not involved.
Step 2: Get players to create characters and draft a backstory. Help them to adjust their backstory to fit the events and area. Change the area to fit their backstories where appropriate.
Step 3: Plot out potential character growth arcs to occur over the long scale of the adventure.
Step 4: Choose a starting adventure - something short that sets the scene and possibly leads into other stories.
Step 5: Choose a bunch of modules (because I'm lazy) that fit with what is happening. Adjust them to fit the area and politics (and in my case the world).
Step 6: Run the first adventure, with seeds of other potential modules.
Step 7: Let the players choose which thread to follow (in character), whether it leads to a module, a character arc mission or something else. As long as the players feel they have a direction it doesn't matter where they go.
Step 8: Work out the logical consequences of the players actions as they go and introduce them to the plot.
Step 9: Be willing to scrap anything, or introduce new things as you go.

I'm a great subscriber to the rule of three - let there always be three obvious options to choose from when you hit a point where a choice is necessary. That gives enough choice that it feels like the characters are not railroaded, but then the choice they make can lead to a section from a module that is bit of a railroad. It also means you can be prepared for whatever choice they make. That's fine for a while, but then when they hit the next point where they make a choice let them have 3 options again. One of those new choices might be a choice they didn't make before, or the repercussions of them not making that choice, or the repercussions of a choice they made a long long time ago.

But always always always let the players go completely off script if they feel that is appropriate within a railroaded bit. In those cases you just need to roll with whatever is going on and try and be logical about 'what would happen next'.

My campaign started off in Eberron with a bit of the Dragonspear Castle module, phased into Princes of the Apocolypse and may go into Out of the Abyss. I also have some old edition modules lined up if I need them. At the moment they are in Princes of the Apocalypse, but have gone off script and taken down the air temple with an army. This has led to the king requesting their presence, while at the same time (unknown to my players - I hope you're not reading this) civil war is in the offing as a direct result of the characters actions in revealing the cult activities of the Featherspire Knights.

So while I have a bunch of stuff lined up, really my campaign could end up going anywhere. That's the way I like it.

 

[Umbran]

This type of campaign is usually called a "sandbox" campaign.

My understanding is that there are a couple of things here.

"Sandbox" is "the world is there, pre-populated, and the PCs can interact with it any way they want."

"Status quo" is a slightly different situation - it may be a sandbox, but the world will remain largely static until such time as the PCs interact with it. If you are in the Southern nation, the West and the North may be at the brink of war. They will *stay* on the brink of war, the situation not fundamentally changing until such time as the PCs muck into that plotline - the status quo between elements will be maintained. The setting will not evolve without PC intervention.

This, in contrast to an evolving sandbox, in which all the elements that are pre-populated are in motion, and when the PCs finally get to them, they may not be in the same state as when the campaign started. Wars will break out, rulers rise and fall, and so on, whether or not the PCs interact with those areas of the setting.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm not sure I understand the title of your thread, but if you're asking generally how my games function, it's like this:

I try to flesh out the world in general and provide at least one major underlying effect that's going on in the world. I then break that down into how each part of the world is being affected by it (if they are at all). The world is generally a campaign-centric sandbox, people are free to do what they want, but there's no guarantee there's anything to do in the place they want to do to. After that, the world and the events available to participate in generally scale with the players level. Yes, there are still roving bands of kobolds, there are still dangerous packs of wolves, but as a DM, I have no interest in running 3 CR 1/2 wolves against a level 9 party. We can RP that if such an encounter happens to come up but there's absolutely no reason to get everything statted up and roll the encounter.

The major events of the world continue on with or without player interference, though some elements of the events of the world may try to rope the players in to them depending on the alignment and general aspects of the players. IE: the good king may call upon Bob the Paladin, who happens to have been born in Good King's lands (and is therefore the King's subject). The Evil King, fearing the power of the players, attempts to make them thing twice about attacking the Evil Kingdom by going and killing the town that Bob was born in.

Local events often do not run until players arrive, since there's really no point in me putting in the effort to set up background events and run their probabilities behind the screen if the party has no intention, ability or desire to reach them. Things that I roll for in the background are things that are likely to affect the party in a reasonable span of time. If the Evil Lich half-way around the world is likely to succeed in the next week, then all the players are likely to hear about is the fall of Kingdomia to the Evil Lich.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I have always run a status quo campaign. What I mean is that I place adventures in locations that make sense right from the beginning and then flow the campaign, clues, story line around those areas but allow the players to just jump in and do what they may with their NPC's. I do not move adventures to new locations for them so they are there. No railroading ever. I warn them ahead of time that balance is not my way of doing things. My world will take advantage of you and/or chew you up. You have to choose your fights. Now behind the scenes I do soften or harden things as needed to a degree, but if a 3rd level party stumbles into the underdark where the demons have set up a camp, after being given one warning sign after another, well...

So how do you run yours? Interested in some new ideas.

Mostly similar. I do have some floating locations that will occur whenever the PCs go in a likely spot, just to cut down on prep work. But as far as events and difficulty go, my responsibility is only to telegraph danger, not protect them from it.

Also, it's a dynamic world, not static. A given organization or NPC is not obligated to stay in the area where he started out, and in the absence of PC intervention the world will still play out a history. PCs can alter that future history with their actions, for better or for worse.

My favorite way to disrupt the status quo is when the PCs make things worse. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.

 

[Rabbitbait]

My favorite way to disrupt the status quo is when the PCs make things worse. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.

Nice - I do that too, mostly by making the PC's choose between stopping the greater of two evils. But which one is the greater when both are potentially devastating?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Nice - I do that too, mostly by making the PC's choose between stopping the greater of two evils. But which one is the greater when both are potentially devastating?

Oh, you are nicer than I am. At least your PCs know they did some good with their choice. I set mine up to (potentially) destroy important things for no particularly good long-term reason and they often take the bait. I do it by throwing them into situations where they only have partial information and then requiring them to make big decisions. Especially ones that balance short-term munchkin instincts against long-term strategic instincts, like "The friendly allied NPCs loaned me this powerful magic item for a specific purpose which now looks impossible to accomplish. Should I give it back or keep it?"

For example, they got their hands on a spelljamming ship, and after zooming around in space and fighting neogi space pirates, they got boarded by an IEN (Imperial Elvish Navy) vessel who expressed some surprise that they had already developed spelljamming technology and wanted to know if they were official government represents authorized to end "the Interdict." When the elves found out they had not built their own spelljamming ship but rather stolen it from neogis, the next question was, "This is highly irregular, but... do you wish to retain spelljamming capability? If so, sign this document stating that you are authorized representatives of the government of [the planet]."

The PCs had a big argument amongst themselves as to whether to sign or not, especially since they didn't fully understand the consequences of either option and didn't really want to ask for fear the elves would take away their ship. Ultimately they signed. And that decision is causing them lots of pain, because now their planet can be freely colonized by the spacegoing powers with no objection by the IEN, and their homeland isn't really in a position to fight them off.

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.

From a Doylist perspective this is actually fine because it ensures that the PCs always have plenty of monsters to slay and foes to fight, lots of dramatic conflict and therefore fun gameplay. But it amuses me to occasionally rub their faces in the fact that, for example, "If it weren't for [the PCs], King Andruin might still be alive and the capital wouldn't be overrun by vampire hobgoblins, only regular hobgoblins."

 

[Snoring Rock]

The major events of the world continue on with or without player interference, though some elements of the events of the world may try to rope the players in to them depending on the alignment and general aspects of the players. IE: the good king may call upon Bob the Paladin, who happens to have been born in Good King's lands (and is therefore the King's subject). The Evil King, fearing the power of the players, attempts to make them thing twice about attacking the Evil Kingdom by going and killing the town that Bob was born in.

Local events often do not run until players arrive, since there's really no point in me putting in the effort to set up background events and run their probabilities behind the screen if the party has no intention, ability or desire to reach them. Things that I roll for in the background are things that are likely to affect the party in a reasonable span of time. If the Evil Lich half-way around the world is likely to succeed in the next week, then all the players are likely to hear about is the fall of Kingdomia to the Evil Lich.

This is more or less what I am calling status quo. The world is there and populated. I do not run that world on some timeline and move it all forward. I let the payers interact with it, which then sets things in motion that may or may not have a big effect on something far away. Clearing a cavern of goblins will not start a war in the next duchy. It will however, open trade on a route the goblins used to raid. That in turn will cause growth in the nearby village. Perhaps in time, that village will challenge the economic status of a far off town and then a war will follow. But the characters will have moved on and possibly returned at a much higher level by then. So maybe the war could happen.

In my campaign a minor noble's daughter was saved from the brigands. The noble now knows the adventurers and he is now a source of information for the PC's. They have traded with the same merchant and now get slightly lower prices in exchange for news and stories. I can, at any time, make that merchant into a spy. Or he can remain a friend.

When I say status quo, I mean that "it" is all there, ready, but does not move or change unless acted upon. Then it comes to life. There is not reason to do anything with the rest of the world unless the PC's are there to experience it. The Overlord has decided not to pay tribute the emperor. The problems that will cause, will not start until the PC's arrive in the tribute city, which will just happen to be tribute day, of course. If they have heard of it already and do nothing, then I will advance the clock and they will miss the onset of trouble. I play it by ear and keep most of the action close to the PC's.

The point is, there is no adventure path or clear beginning or end. There is for certain adventures and goals, but not to the overall campaign.

 

[Mercule]

I run a sandbox style overall, but there are NPCs and organizations with agendas and they don't pause their plans if the players decide not to handle a particular adventure. As the players get into trouble interfering for good or ill in these plans, things change drastically.

This is my preferred style, to the point of usually not even bothering with published adventures. If the players (or their characters) aren't particularly self-motivated, then I'm fine beating them over the head with a particular module. I've learned to be fairly explicit, over the years, that they either need to use the sandbox freedom or lose it; once I break out the big modules (say, Princes of the Apocalypse), it's too late to cry about railroading and character motivations. I'm still not particularly heavy-handed, but I have very little patience with players who only tell me what their characters won't do.

 

[Minigiant]

Oh no.
My world definitely moves on its own and if the PCs don't act, the NPCs will. If they take time off to recuperate, there is a B-Team, Delta Squad, the Fellowship, and Bizzaro Party out there.

If the PC decide not to take the quest to slay a dragon, Delta Squad does and they split the loot. Later I will mention these in rumors and reports from other PCs. And if they meet the Fellowship the PC will see all the loot, they missed when "Totally Not Bilbo" shows of his magic ring, armor, and shortsword.

BTeam is all basics: Human champion, dwarf life cleric, elf evoker, halfling thief. 100% success rate.

Delta Squad is all wacky special snowflakes: half orc paladin, gnome warlock, dragonborn bard, tiefling sorcerer. They die a lot.

Bizzaro Party is always opposites of the party. They ALWAYS either turn evil or antagonize the PCs.

 

[Valus]

My understanding is that there are a couple of things here.

"Sandbox" is "the world is there, pre-populated, and the PCs can interact with it any way they want."

"Status quo" is a slightly different situation - it may be a sandbox, but the world will remain largely static until such time as the PCs interact with it. If you are in the Southern nation, the West and the North may be at the brink of war. They will *stay* on the brink of war, the situation not fundamentally changing until such time as the PCs muck into that plotline - the status quo between elements will be maintained. The setting will not evolve without PC intervention.

This, in contrast to an evolving sandbox, in which all the elements that are pre-populated are in motion, and when the PCs finally get to them, they may not be in the same state as when the campaign started. Wars will break out, rulers rise and fall, and so on, whether or not the PCs interact with those areas of the setting.

Interesting. I've never heard of a campaign labeled that way, but it makes sense.