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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5689813" data-attributes="member: 54877">Agree. I know you don't need pre-plotting, in fact. Because I often don't plot and get precisely all of those good things.&nbsp;Now, it is true that for any given NPC, it might not work. I'll need a few extras to see which ones will stick, and then run with them. However, I know if I have 10 NPCs with decent goals and motivations, I can bank on 4-6 of them recurring and acting in ways that would in a post-game log appear indistinguishable from if someone had plotted them. It is so indistinguishable that the players in the game often don't believe me when I tell them it was not plotted. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid&nbsp; &nbsp; :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" />&nbsp;It is also true that players being able to do anything is probably not your best bet if you want this result. Fortunately, I can keep the players from running off to Sigil by framing the campaign at launch such that the &quot;box&quot; part of &quot;sandbox&quot; is fairly clear. If the campaign is about mucking about in the Empire, then the players will rarely want to leave the Empire. And as far as I'm concerned, a good sandbox is not about limitless play (that would be good freeform, maybe). Rather, it is about agreed upon limits--within which, anything goes. You can do anything you want with the sand in the box. You can't change the box.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5689813, member: 54877"] Agree. I know you don't need pre-plotting, in fact. Because I often don't plot and get precisely all of those good things. Now, it is true that for any given NPC, it might not work. I'll need a few extras to see which ones will stick, and then run with them. However, I know if I have 10 NPCs with decent goals and motivations, I can bank on 4-6 of them recurring and acting in ways that would in a post-game log appear indistinguishable from if someone had plotted them. It is so indistinguishable that the players in the game often don't believe me when I tell them it was not plotted. :uhoh: It is also true that players being able to do [B]anything[/B] is probably not your best bet if you want this result. Fortunately, I can keep the players from running off to Sigil by framing the campaign at launch such that the "box" part of "sandbox" is fairly clear. If the campaign is about mucking about in the Empire, then the players will rarely want to leave the Empire. And as far as I'm concerned, a good sandbox is not about limitless play (that would be good freeform, maybe). Rather, it is about agreed upon limits--within which, anything goes. You can do anything you want with the sand in the box. You can't change the box. [/QUOTE]

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