The "Trojan Sandbox" Campaign

[Mercurius]

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm about seven sessions into a 4th edition campaign. We just completed the first introductory (i.e. "learn the rules") adventure and now, with characters in the 3-4th level range, I want to start developing a larger campaign arc. The "problem" I have is that I like both extremes of campaign style: metaplot and sandbox and, perhaps naively, think the two are not antithetical and can even be combined in a potentially potent way, what I will call a "Trojan Sandbox" after the Trojan Horse.

The idea is pretty straightforward: The campaign "appears" to be one thing but is "actually" (or also) something else. The "horse" is a sandbox campaign, whether loose (wandering the lands, bumping into encounters) or more structured (a series of unconnected adventures); the "Greek warriors" are a growing metaplot that is, in some sense and at least partially, caused by the PCs and their sandbox-style of adventuring.

So you have on one hand a group of PCs running around the world, killing monsters and taking their stuff, yet underlying all of this happy-go-lucky adventuring is a larger plot brewing, perhaps an Ancient Evil seeking release into the world to enact its vengeance (or something equally enjoyably cliche)...and all along it may be that the PCs are the ones that set this plot in motion by finding something that shouldn't have been found and selling it on the blackmarket (or something like that).

In some sense this sort of campaign is tailor-made for Han Solo types: reluctant heroes who transform from mercenaries to heroes. But the most crucial ingredient that I like and want to exploit as much as possible is the outer/inner aspect of the campaign: the outer appearance of sandbox and mercenary-style play, and the inner reality of an underlying deeper plot that the PCs find themselves embroiled in.

So I am writing this to ask if anyone does anything similar, how they go about doing it, and any pointers or things they want to share.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

I have long believed that the dichotomy between "sandbox" style of play and "campaigns with plots" is, at best, over-emphasized. The campaign I've played in that I like the most has a strong sandbox element, in that the PCs can go whereever they want and are not forced to follow specific plotlines. At the same time, there is stuff that is happening in the game world, regardless of whether the PCs engage with it. So in that sense, it is much like your campaign, with both a sandbox feel and a metaplot. The more the PCs engage with some of the established conflicts and plots, the more it will feel like a plot-driven campaign. The more they ignore the signs that the followers of X are trying to do Y, and instead head towards the next dungeon (or keep moving down the road, or concentrate on building their thieves' guild, or whatever), the more it will feel like a sandbox. (But really, in all but the most static of sandboxes, there are consequences to actions, and NPCs react and pursue their own goals. So in that sense, it feels like a sandbox either way.) But regardless of how much the PCs engage with the "plot," the campaign retains both aspects.

That said, I would be wary of conceiving of this as a "Trojan horse." In my experience, bait-and-switch experiences-- where the players thought they were getting one thing but instead were given something very different, by the GM's design-- rarely go well. I would suggest encouraging you to think of it instead as a sandbox that happens to have a series of consequences running through it. If the PCs choose to respond to the consequences (chasing the metaplot), then it can become an increasing focus of the campaign. If they ignore it, then they keep playing in a sandbox that happens to change in ways that may seem strange to them but make sense to you. You may hope they get involved with the metaplot-- and they may regret some things that happen to the gameworld if they don't-- but if they retain that choice and agency, the game runs much less risk of alienating players by starting as one thing and then jarringly changing.

Put another way-- you don't want your players thinking, "hey, we liked living in Troy, when suddenly your warriors sacked our city!" You want them instead thinking "hey, I thought this game was cool already, but the more I pull at this thread and find something there, the cooler it gets!"

Obviously, you know your players and I don't-- they may be totally cool with everything you're doing. I just suggest a little caution.

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks, good ideas. I'm one of those fortunate DMs that has a pretty unjaded group, meaning no rules lawyers, no sense of entitlement ("But I get my +2 circumstantial bonus!"), and only moderate, at most, gaming experience. At this point everyone is open to playing whatever type of campaign I'll throw a them, but as we go further along I will keep your advice in mind and listen for signs of feeling duped, railroaded, etc.

The campaign you describe isn't that different than what I am going for, although perhaps one notch over towards "sandboxism" and away from "metaplotism." In essence what I want to capture is not only the obvious pros and cons of both approaches, but the "vibe" that both inspire:

*Sandbox - sword and sorcery, exploration of ruins, lost civilizations, treasure, ancient evils, acquiring wealth and fame, etc. In the sandbox campaign there is a sense of timelessness--that the setting is caught in an eternal moment; I get this when I look at the map of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy and think, "That campaign setting has been the same for 30 years and will probably always be the same."

*Metaplot - huge events, epic story, monumental choices, a changing world. The metaplot campaign carries a sense of time and change, and the PCs have the opportunity to participate, even be movers and shakers. You get a sense of this when you look at a map of Middle-earth, which is the last age of the Ancient World before the time of men. What will the world become? How can the PCs influence it one way or another?

In other words, in the sandbox world nothing fundamentally changes. Something could--the players could take over the world or release a plague of demons, but the underlying feeling is that of timelessness; if there is movement it is the mythic Eternal Return or Round. In the metaplot the campaign takes place during the crux or pivot of great change, on whatever scale. The Eternal Round is broken and a new way forward is found (or created). The world (or region or kingdom) is transforming from one condition to another.

So I want to capture something of both: the timelessness of a sword and sorcery world that "never was and always is", but with bits and pieces of change and movement creeping in. In some sense it is analogous to growing up, in particular adolescence: the timelessness of childhood being "invaded" by ever-increasing glimpses of maturity and responsibility as the once-distance graduation day comes closer.

Or maybe I'm just a high school teacher and hang out with teenagers too much

 

[howandwhy99]

I agree with Cerebral Paladin. What it sounds to me like though is you want to write a high level module and have that be the main high level module for the starting area of the campaign. To really run a campaign "world" and not simply a boxed in area, then there will need to be the potential for other high level modules elsewhere. Given that most low level games stick to one area and Players generally grow to view that area as "home" (not to mention you'd place their Background homes there to start with), then I wouldn't worry about the players having some interaction within the high level module. The machinations of the high level NPCs will routinely affect and be affected the smaller happenings the PCs are interacting with. But facing the Big Boys with some skill likely will not happen until the party is high enough level to dig deeper into that modules specifics anyways (though you never know). Regardless of what the PCs decide to do in your initial sandbox/campaign world, the NPCs of this module will greatly define the starting area anyways so catching them up in it shouldn't be too difficult. In effect, the PCs will always be in the overarching plotting of your module's NPCs as long as they remain active in the parts of the world those NPCs influence. The bigger the influence, the more likely they will have to come into direct conflict with them, but also more the time it will take to reach that point.

The best metaphor I can think of is to imagine the highest level baddies as the really big cogs in the watchtower. They may not look like they are moving, but they influence everything else in the machine.

If you want what is called a "meta-plot" in a sandbox or traditional campaign game, then my advice is stop thinking of them as endgame scenarios. Events cannot be preplanned in RPGs. My suggestion is to detail your highest level NPCs (good, bad, whatever) and work your way down. Give these big boys a full characterization, determine their motivations, their relationships to each other, and then work the lower level modules into them from there. If this were for publication, I would suggest not detailing anything below the levels challenged. That's for the Ref to do, to take other, lower level modules and tie them into the overarching structure your working down from.

One example, though pretty flawed, is Temple of Elemental Evil. That module was too much repeated underground dungeon IMO, but it did have large amounts of what I think of as above ground dungeon: the two towns, the moathouse, the cathedral and tower, the different organizations working together (Elementals, Big NPCs), and others groups as hirelings and henchman (bandits, spies). Many of its' elements were more than enough to constitute their own smaller adventure modules, but the big module demonstrated one means of tying multiple modules together.

If you can imagine every module tied into to every other, however peripherally, then I think you can design what you are asking for.

 

[Ariosto]

*Sandbox - sword and sorcery, exploration of ruins, lost civilizations, treasure, ancient evils, acquiring wealth and fame, etc. In the sandbox campaign there is a sense of timelessness--that the setting is caught in an eternal moment; I get this when I look at the map of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy and think, "That campaign setting has been the same for 30 years and will probably always be the same."

*Metaplot - huge events, epic story, monumental choices, a changing world. The metaplot campaign carries a sense of time and change, and the PCs have the opportunity to participate, even be movers and shakers. You get a sense of this when you look at a map of Middle-earth, which is the last age of the Ancient World before the time of men. What will the world become? How can the PCs influence it one way or another?

That's just ... bizarre, from my perspective. The published Wilderlands maps have been the same for decades -- but do you really think nothing's changed in active campaigns for so long? The Wilderlands are not about following someone else's "canonical" future-history; they're about using the material (modified however you may want) as a starting point for a campaign that is thoroughly yours. The writers have included material that may inspire the seeds of epics, but intentionally avoided trying to dictate how your campaign should grow and develop. The same holds for the World of Greyhawk folio, and other such works. Back in the 1970s, the notion of such an extensive, continually "officially updated" setting product line as Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms (& etc.) was foreign to the basic concept of what D&D was about.

"Metaplot," in the sense of events proceeding in the wider world, is an essential part of a "sandbox" campaign! The emphasis, though, is firmly on players having the opportunity to participate -- not forcing them to play particular roles in the unfolding events. Moreover, it is usually considered desirable to have many interesting things going on, not just one. Even in our real World Wars, there were more than two "sides," engaged in more than one significant struggle.

If you have Temple of Elemental Evil, read the bit about what transpired in the original campaign!

 

[Mark]

The trick, IMO, is to choose a time for the Bad Guys to become aware of the PCs when the PCs have either already started setting their sights on the Bad Guys or at least have begun to concern themselves with some of the consequences of the Bad Guys' machinations to the point of almost guaranteed involvement through the campaign end on the PCs' part.

 

[roguerouge]

Alternative title: All Roads Lead to Rome

 

[Celebrim]

The idea is pretty straightforward: The campaign "appears" to be one thing but is "actually" (or also) something else. The "horse" is a sandbox campaign, whether loose (wandering the lands, bumping into encounters) or more structured (a series of unconnected adventures); the "Greek warriors" are a growing metaplot that is, in some sense and at least partially, caused by the PCs and their sandbox-style of adventuring.

To stretch your metaphor, I've seen both 'warriors in the horse' and 'horse in the warriors'.

In one version, you grab the players with a huge early hook to get the campaign rolling and to get the action and intrigue started right away. But eventually, as the story unfolds it reaches a point where what the players have done thus far trumps any preconcieved narrative. The DM writes the first few chapters, but leaves it up to the PC's to provide the narrative focus of the rest of the story.

As an example of when such a technique might be useful, I suggest the 1st edition 'Dragonlance' campaign. For the campaign to be really successful, at some point you need to let the players jump off the rails and take the story in their own direction, using the information in the many modules for inspiration to create a sandbox environment. By all accounts, if you force the PC's to stay on the rails the whole way through the story arc, it becomes stale and unfun.

Another place such a technique is useful is what I call 'The Grand Tour' introduction, where some initial arm twisting hook forces the characters to undergo a long journey somewhat predictable journey in which you introduce the peculiar features of the setting to a new group. After 'The Grand Tour' is finished, you leave the players to investigate anything that they found interesting along the way and to pursue their own goals.

The other technique, of introducing a sandbox where there is some underlying mystery that gradually becomes apparant is pretty interesting as well. I think every good campaign has deep secrets to it. The risk here - at least based on my experience - is that when you decide on this approach, you really need to be assured of a group that is going to meet regularly for years. If you take a true sandbox approach, it may take a very long time for the metaplot to perculate up the surface if it ever does at all. On the other hand, if you force the metaplot on the characters too quickly, you run the risk of giving the players too little time in the sandbox to feel like they have had true freedom. On the other hand, don't get stuck too far in an ideology. If what you really want to do is run that metaplot, to heck with the ideology and throw in the invasion of dragons or whatever it is that is the campaigns great conflict.