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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertsconley" data-source="post: 9077376" data-attributes="member: 13383">For me what happened is that I got my start with wargames while I was in elementary school then a little later when I moved on to junior high in the late 70s, I encountered and played D&D and other roleplaying games. From wargaming, I was used to the idea of a scenario and how to set one up. The focus was to set up a situation and play out it using the rules you had. For example, a small unit encounter using AH's Squad Leader. You didn't know how things would play out and or when things would happen. The early adventures I used, like the Village of Hommlet, my 12-year-old self viewed them as scenarios with a grander scope. Not only they did not have a defined victory condition, but there was also a wealth of details and implied details that could make for something that was far more interesting than the wargames I played at the time.When I started my campaign, I found the different ways my friends approached things to be far more interesting than achieving some imagined end condition. That led to letting players trash the setting, which led to learning how to make that an interesting challenge*, and ultimately led to creating my ideas on how to run sandbox campaigns. Putting them into practice and testing them.*Focusing on a 20k walk and making sure that everybody has their lunch packed becomes a lot more interesting when the point is to get to the royal castle before the king's brother "would-be usurper" does and the brother's allies are hunting the party. This is not happening because a narrative demands it, but rather a result of what happened when the party decided that opposing the king's brother was an important goal.  If the party hasn't decided to oppose the king's brother then his allies would be used for some other purpose that would further his plans to usurp the throne. If the players haven't gotten involved at all, then I would resolve the attempt and it would be mentioned as part of the background news the group would hear as they pursued their adventures.</blockquote>

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