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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 4721330" data-attributes="member: 3192">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.</blockquote>

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