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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oryan77" data-source="post: 5542673" data-attributes="member: 18701">If I understand the string of pearls terminology correctly, then I do the same thing.I prefer to be prepared. I can wing it when the players go off track, but overall, I'm of the opinion that a game is much more fun when the DM has some sort of plan just in case the players don't move things along themselves.So to start, I come up with the big plot. Maybe the PCs need to find an artifact and deliver it to someone or have it destroyed. I write out some notes that I can refer to. The notes consist of environments I'd like the PCs to travel to and NPCs & monsters I'd like the PCs to encounter.Then I figure out which published adventures I'd like to run and I figure out if I can work it into this big plot. I may adjust the adventure so it takes place in one of my noted environments, and I may change the encounters to ones that I also made note of. I may also need to adjust the difficulty level of the adventures and convert them to 3.5 if they are from a different edition.Then I figure out the order that I would like to run these adventures. While deciding this, I come up with material that I can work into the adventure so the adventure will be linked to my big plot.This isn't necessarily done all at once, I may start the game without really having the big plot really thought out or know what published adventures I will run later on. But I'll have enough to get the game going. Sometimes the players actions will give me an idea for where to steer the campaign.As the players play through these adventures, I come up with side quests that I also run during and between the published adventures. The side quests are based off of the PCs actions and their histories. I usually handle the side quests the same way that I handle the published adventures that were inserted into the big plot. Except the side quests are really short published adventures (usually from Dungeon magazines) that I tweak & tailor to the PCs backgrounds/actions.So I have all of these scenarios (the pearls) that for the most part, link to each other one after another. I still provide the players with hooks that allow them to choose which scenario they play out first so they feel like they are making their own choices, and I rearrange my adventures (pearls) accordingly. Everything is planned out, but the players interact with them their own way and it still feels (to them) that it is a sandbox game. Technically it's a railroad, but it's all about giving the illusion that it is a sandbox.That is how I do it. In all honesty though, I'm considering doing things different from now on. As cool as I think my way of running adventures is, it's meant to be for a long running campaign. And as often as players keep leaving & joining the group, it just doesn't work well when that's the case. I think I may just focus on running published adventures as they are and not come up with a grand plotline with personalized side quests. I waste a lot of time coming up with side quests for players that end up leaving the game. And it's difficult for new players joining the game to feel invested in the big plot when they join an adventure that has already been running.</blockquote>

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