The many types of Sandboxes and Open-World Campaigns

[payn]

That is why I think a sandbox game needs continuous resource depletion even when there's no obstacles. If the players are undecided and treading water trying to find new opportunities, tell them another month has passed and their purses are now considerably lighter.
Characters having no in-game motivation to leave safety and face danger is a big problem I used to struggle with for many years. Inaction must have a price.

I think having a campaign goal that requires action (and will decline with inaction) really helps. Something a little more sophisticated than a light purse. Though, I get you have been reluctant to look into political intrigue style games, so maybe the old ways are the best ways for you.

Yeah, that's the point. Key to running an open world campaign is to be disinterested in what the players do, what they accomplish, and what they finish. As I see it, the role of the GM as facilitator of the world and moderator of the group is to provide the players with help to get them going. Once they are going, they should be following their whims, not be expected to do whatever the GM things would make for a great story.
I think that's an error that a huge number of GMs are making. I so often see GMs complaining that their players are wandering off and spending ages on stuff that isn't supposed to be relevant to the campaign. But unless the players are endlessly debating in circles and never deciding on any course of action, that's exactly what a GM should want to see. Of all the terms for GMs, "Storyteller" is by far the worst one I've seen. That's a completely backwards approach to what the medium of RPGs is all about.

See above. Also, I think the world should absolutely care what the players do and accomplish. If they are gaining things, then someone is losing. Eventually, they will make enemies (and allies) which will support future encounters and adventures.

 

[Yora]

Something I think fantasy RPGs are routinely underestimating or completely ignoring is that any time the PCs kill anybody, there are some people somewhere out there who are really mad about it. Chances are usually high they will never learn who did it, and even if they do they might be in no position to do anythig about it.
But I feel any campaign is greatly elevated when it's something the players always have to remember. Even if they think they've always been completely justified and would always do it again. There should always be a chance that perhaps right now there is someone not far away, who the players have never seen or heard of, who is plotting revenge against them.

 

[kenada]

But the big question is how to give the campaign a structure. Telling the players they have a million square miles to do what they want and there's a some 20 prepared dungeons in it won't work. I guess they could still be treasure hunters, looking for old Narfell dungeons whose locations are known to local villages, but that nobody has ever dared going far into. Even when your village does have a 3rd level barbarian and six 2nd level fighters, that doesn't mean they can simply stroll in and claim all the treasures for themselves. But would that be enough? I think people interested in a 5th edition campaign in an established setting might be hoping for a bit more than that.

Check out the chapters on running a campaign in Worlds Without Number (particularly the stuff starting on page 228). It gives decent advice on running an adventure-driven sandbox game. It’s all system-neutral, so it should be applicable to 5e.

 

[overgeeked]

Check out the chapters on running a campaign in Worlds Without Number (particularly the stuff starting on page 228). It gives decent advice on running an adventure-driven sandbox game. It’s all system-neutral, so it should be applicable to 5e.

WWN is an absolute beast of a book for open-world games. It's the single most useful book a DM could pick up to run these style games.

 

[aramis erak]

@Yora : I'm going to give you the best single piece of advice I've found for open-world, and it's not even mine:

Map Only As Really Necessary.

It's enough to have a space with a handful of meaningful towns (where you've got factions), and general "This way to City X →" around it. Add on as it becomes important. And keep notes of what you've filled in. A sandbox need not be detailed to be useful.

If you're players set out for the edge in a given direction, add that section next.

Note that (Classic) Traveller's Alien Module 1: Aslan has a whole adventure built around trying to cross 100 parsecs of unmapped space, procedurally generated during travel....

 

[Reynard]

Something I think fantasy RPGs are routinely underestimating or completely ignoring is that any time the PCs kill anybody, there are some people somewhere out there who are really mad about it. Chances are usually high they will never learn who did it, and even if they do they might be in no position to do anythig about it.
But I feel any campaign is greatly elevated when it's something the players always have to remember. Even if they think they've always been completely justified and would always do it again. There should always be a chance that perhaps right now there is someone not far away, who the players have never seen or heard of, who is plotting revenge against them.

Like Bargle.

Good. Come get it you murdering bastard.

 

[bloodtide]

I got a specific question about a problem I am currently facing.

Well...you have a typical problem, one I know well. You want an amazing epic fun interesting exciting immersive detailed campaign. And many players want little more then endless mindless combat and some ego stroking.

So the real answer your looking for is you need to get a couple players, deprogram them from their common popular way of D&D thinking. Then bulid them back up as amazing D&D gamers. Once you do this a couple times, you will have a pool of good players to pick from.

The big thing to get players to understand is that they can do anything. They don't have to go on a mindless "quest". They don't have to pick from the DMs adventure seeds. They don't have to pick a simple direct all combat thing. Once you can get players over this big hump, they might do other things to make a great game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well...you have a typical problem, one I know well. You want an amazing epic fun interesting exciting immersive detailed campaign. And many players want little more then endless mindless combat and some ego stroking.

So the real answer your looking for is you need to get a couple players, deprogram them from their common popular way of D&D thinking. Then bulid them back up as amazing D&D gamers. Once you do this a couple times, you will have a pool of good players to pick from.

The big thing to get players to understand is that they can do anything. They don't have to go on a mindless "quest". They don't have to pick from the DMs adventure seeds. They don't have to pick a simple direct all combat thing. Once you can get players over this big hump, they might do other things to make a great game.

So how do you handle this as a GM? How do they “do anything”?

 

[aramis erak]

So how do you handle this as a GM? How do they “do anything”?

Step 1: Get them to write attainable goals as part of character gen.
Step 2: provide enough hooks for them to pursue same.
Step 3: have them write new goals as they accomplish existing ones.

I've used this with Arabian Sea Tales, D&D, Burning Wheel, Blood & Honor, Firefly, Mouse Guard, Burning Empires. For Burning Empires, Burning Wheel, and Mouse Guard, it's actually part of the rules, and the point where I finally grasped the process. (And I should thank my BW players, especially Justice, for buying in.)

 

[Committed Hero]

Over on rpg.net someone recently noted that

Worldbuilding is like doing push-ups. It's a strength-building exercise. It's you as a GM internalizing the ideas of conflicts and resources and setting details so that you can come up with them as responses to questions. It's developing the brainmeats that allow you to roll with ideas that you hadn't thought of instead of vetoing them.

and I can't stop thinking about the implications.