The many types of Sandboxes and Open-World Campaigns

[Yora]

I think actually you could take that statement even further and say that the factions are the "environment" of the setting in place of geography. Through the selection of factions you pick, and the choice which ones you don't pick, you are defining the theme and tone of the campaign. Even though the players would have the potential option to go everywhere and talk with everyone to do anything, the main factions make up the pool from which both trouble and help will come to them. As GM, you have complete freedom in take a character from anywhere if you're in need for an NPC for a specific situation. If you keep drawing a majority of such NPCs from the factions then you're automatically steering the players back into the network of faction conflicts. The players have complete freedom to go anywhere they want in physical space, but almost everyone they know who can provide assistance and advice that could meaningfully help them exists in that network and they don't have anywhere else to turn to. And in turn, any favor or service they are asked for in return will further draw them into that net.

Potentially, this net could even exist over a large part of the galaxy, but it might also be just a single star system. Since distances are illusionary in settings with arbitrarily fast hyperspace speed, it is the size of actors in the network that determines scale, not distance. Especially when using a system where time tracking is highly abstracted or nonexistent.

Six major factions that define the setting for the current campaign (though not necessarily the whole of the fictional world) seems like a good maximum number. That gives you a good breadth of different factions and also different types of factions and a total of 15 relationships between them (if my math doesn't fail me).

 

[Committed Hero]

Maybe someday will see planets other than Tatooine for the umteenth billion time.

The subsidies for filming there are incredible.

 

[Aldarc]

I think actually you could take that statement even further and say that the factions are the "environment" of the setting in place of geography. Through the selection of factions you pick, and the choice which ones you don't pick, you are defining the theme and tone of the campaign. Even though the players would have the potential option to go everywhere and talk with everyone to do anything, the main factions make up the pool from which both trouble and help will come to them. As GM, you have complete freedom in take a character from anywhere if you're in need for an NPC for a specific situation. If you keep drawing a majority of such NPCs from the factions then you're automatically steering the players back into the network of faction conflicts. The players have complete freedom to go anywhere they want in physical space, but almost everyone they know who can provide assistance and advice that could meaningfully help them exists in that network and they don't have anywhere else to turn to. And in turn, any favor or service they are asked for in return will further draw them into that net.

Potentially, this net could even exist over a large part of the galaxy, but it might also be just a single star system. Since distances are illusionary in settings with arbitrarily fast hyperspace speed, it is the size of actors in the network that determines scale, not distance. Especially when using a system where time tracking is highly abstracted or nonexistent.

Six major factions that define the setting for the current campaign (though not necessarily the whole of the fictional world) seems like a good maximum number. That gives you a good breadth of different factions and also different types of factions and a total of 15 relationships between them (if my math doesn't fail me).

I occasionally use the MtG Color Pie as a way to set up factions, as it gives a broad-stroke sense of values (e.g., Morality/Order, Freedom/Chaos, Nature/Balance, etc.) with two opposed factions and two aligned factions for each color/faction at the basic five color level. It's obviously not applicable for every faction one may conceive, but it sometimes provides a helpful starting framework if one is out of ideas or just want some generic factions.

Edit: Alternatively, you could build factions using the ten factions of Ravnica as a loose basis, but then only pick about 4-6 that the PCs may encounter in a given area. As you suggest, it's about picking your themes.

 

[Yora]

My current idea is for a frontier star sector in which all the planets with easily accessible high value resources have already been mined and the industrial fleets of the great mining clans migrated on to new systems. On several of the planets that the mining clans have considered depleted, there are still substential amounts of resources to be found, but extraction is hard and not worth their time when they can just move their whole fleet to mine somewhere else. These depleted planets still have hundreds of thousands of people living on them whose contracts didn't get renewed or who used to sell services to miners after their shifts, who now make a meager living scraping away at the leftovers.

There's only a single mining fleet still in the sector, strip mining their last planet before moving on as well. [Dresat Mining Clan]
There are two planets in the sector with quite pleasant environments, which two merchant houses have set up shop on. The provide goods from the core worlds or their own local factory to the colonists and miners of the sector in exchange for the resources they mine, and of course are demanding outragous prices since they have a monopoly on these trades. Their planets are effectively giant company towns. [Ordos Merchant Cartel and Lupai Merchant Cartel]
The independent mines in the sector are fed up with the lousy exchange rates of the cartels and many of them are trying to unite to have their own fleet of freighters taking their resources to markets in the core worlds. [Tornesh Miners Cooperative]
For added confusion, a military task force from a neighboring interstellar state has recently arrived in the independent sector, claiming that they are "fighting piracy and protecting interstellar commerce". Which is odd for a sector whose only major industry has already left. [Directory Fleet]

It's a start, but still somewhat lightweight.
The two cartels are obviously trying to get a full monopoly on what trade remains in the sector, since there's not enough profit to be made to be slip between them as before. And both of them want to keep the Miners Cooperative from gaining economic autonomy. Endless opportunity. Help the miners from defending against sabotage and blackmail from the cartels, and help the cartels harming each other. Or help the cartels sabotaging the miners. But that's really only a two-sided conflict with clear good guys and bad guys, even if some miner leaders may be ruthless backstabbing bastards.
Unfortunatly, I still have no idea what the Mining Clan could want other than depleting their last planet. They are the largest entity in the sector, but with no motivations they aren't a relevant faction yet. Also no clue what the Directory Fleet really is trying to accomplish while it's loitering in the area inspecting freighters and settlements for suspected pirate activity.

Do you have any ideas what kinds of questions to ask to expand on those rought outlines and develop them further?

 

[Baron Opal II]

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've had players in my West Marches game simply park it in the starting town and never leave. It's a safe place with zero adventure. And the player just wanted to be a shopkeeper. So I retired that character and asked the player to make an adventurer, they declined, so that was that. Kept the character around as an NPC and they occasionally pop up, but they're not out adventuring.

I've had this experience, too. A handful of times, thinking about it.

I have taken the person aside and asked them what they want. When they tell me that "my character has no motivation to adventure" I tell them "find one." I explain that we are getting together to play a social adventure game and that there is some basic amount of cooperation that's required.

Now, if the kind of adventure I am offering is unsatisfactory, tell me what you want and I'll provide it. If you want to play the reluctant hero, fine, but you need to tell me what would motivate the character. What is their desire, fear, or need that gets them off of the farm? Because I, and everyone else at the table, is tired of me guessing wrong. But if your motivation is being an anchor and make everyone else squirm I will have none of it and there is the door.

Your character doesn't need to like the other ones, you can pine for the shop, farm, spouse, children, whatever. You don't even need to play. Do you just want to socialize before, after, and during dinner (our usual break)? Fine, you are welcome to sit on the couch and observe, read, whatever. It's quite comfy. But, you will not be an anchor.

I don't like doing that, and am rather conflict-adverse. However, I and my friends are rather busy and we don't have many opportunities to get together for this pastime. Most of the time attitudes shift, but I have had to show two people the door over this. They were rather upset that I didn't "have the emotional maturity to accommodate their playstyle." Whatever.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Do you have any ideas what kinds of questions to ask to expand on those rought outlines and develop them further?

What could the Mining Clan find that would entice them to stay besides more ore? Some prestige for controlling the system? Notable societal or religious figure was born or trained here?

Would the coordinators of the two habitable planets be looking to make them food producers or pleasure destinations?

Why would a neighboring polity be interested in this system? Do you need plentiful hydrogen for ship fuel? Are there thalassic planets that can be harvested for their water or gas giants for their hydrogen? Is the system a nexus, or potential nexus, for warp lanes?

Is there a faction that needs a test population of a potential pharmaceutical on one of the Garden worlds?

What would people give to leave the system? What would they want that the Mining Guild would not want them to have? Can a ship be built here, however unrealistically? If not, what is missing that would need to be smuggled in?

 

[payn]

My current idea is for a frontier star sector in which all the planets with easily accessible high value resources have already been mined and the industrial fleets of the great mining clans migrated on to new systems. On several of the planets that the mining clans have considered depleted, there are still substential amounts of resources to be found, but extraction is hard and not worth their time when they can just move their whole fleet to mine somewhere else. These depleted planets still have hundreds of thousands of people living on them whose contracts didn't get renewed or who used to sell services to miners after their shifts, who now make a meager living scraping away at the leftovers.

There's only a single mining fleet still in the sector, strip mining their last planet before moving on as well. [Dresat Mining Clan]
There are two planets in the sector with quite pleasant environments, which two merchant houses have set up shop on. The provide goods from the core worlds or their own local factory to the colonists and miners of the sector in exchange for the resources they mine, and of course are demanding outragous prices since they have a monopoly on these trades. Their planets are effectively giant company towns. [Ordos Merchant Cartel and Lupai Merchant Cartel]
The independent mines in the sector are fed up with the lousy exchange rates of the cartels and many of them are trying to unite to have their own fleet of freighters taking their resources to markets in the core worlds. [Tornesh Miners Cooperative]
For added confusion, a military task force from a neighboring interstellar state has recently arrived in the independent sector, claiming that they are "fighting piracy and protecting interstellar commerce". Which is odd for a sector whose only major industry has already left. [Directory Fleet]

It's a start, but still somewhat lightweight.
The two cartels are obviously trying to get a full monopoly on what trade remains in the sector, since there's not enough profit to be made to be slip between them as before. And both of them want to keep the Miners Cooperative from gaining economic autonomy. Endless opportunity. Help the miners from defending against sabotage and blackmail from the cartels, and help the cartels harming each other. Or help the cartels sabotaging the miners. But that's really only a two-sided conflict with clear good guys and bad guys, even if some miner leaders may be ruthless backstabbing bastards.
Unfortunatly, I still have no idea what the Mining Clan could want other than depleting their last planet. They are the largest entity in the sector, but with no motivations they aren't a relevant faction yet. Also no clue what the Directory Fleet really is trying to accomplish while it's loitering in the area inspecting freighters and settlements for suspected pirate activity.

Do you have any ideas what kinds of questions to ask to expand on those rought outlines and develop them further?

I hope I get these names right...

What is the timing for the mining fleet "Dresat" to move on? Months, years, decades? Sounds pretty bleak for the independent mining colonies. Not sure what exactly could reverse their fortunes? Or is there just enough here for them to eke out a meager economic existence? If the latter, I'd probably just skip the Dresat mining fleet completely. Dont see the purpose they serve?

What are the stakes for "Directory Fleet"? Are they there for political reasons? Maybe some Duke has investment in the system and the pull to have a fleet protect their interests? Perhaps there really is a pirate problem in the system? What a cool extra faction that would be! On a less cool, but still nasty level, maybe Directory fleet is there to union bust and maintain the status quo... or both.

The most obvious of all this are the merchant guilds. Their stakes seem pretty clear.

 

[Yora]

Mostly I want to have a big dirty industrial planet in the setting. It being controlled by a giant company that makes up a substential fraction of the sector's entire economy seemed a natural fit.
One thing that comes to mind is that many of the other factions have an interest for them to stick around. Particularly the merchant houses.

Perhaps the mining clan does not actually have good reasons to stay around much longer, but some of the people in charge of the planet have a personal interest in extending the whole opperation a few more decades. Because they have personally lucrative arangements with other local factions, which they would lose if the mine is relocated somewhere else. Forging numbers to make their superiors think this planet is more profitable than it really is. Some work teams might be captured slaves bought from local pirates, which make productivity look higher because they are not officially on the employment list.
Not quite a goal yet, but it does start giving them some character.

 

[overgeeked]

I can’t recommend Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number enough.

 

[Yora]

Okay, not to be contrary about this at all. Lot's of people are amazed by it.

But I don't get it.

Random tables to create random planets are nice and all if you need a random planet quickly. But I've never seen anything really helpful in either games to create a world.
I actually think the tables in Red Tide are my favorite ones. They seem pretty straightforward to use.