I was looking to get some advice on a campaign I have been planning for my players. The setting is the typical D&D fantasy setting homebrew of course. Where the players characters are part of an adventurers guild, much like the Fairy Tail, and Goblin Slayer animes. Where they are free to choose any job that is available. I was thinking about having no more than 5 of these jobs available to the players at a time, with 1-3 of them having to do with a certain plot, and the others being generic fetch, kill, or escort jobs.
So my questions for everyone are.
Have you ever run this style of game?
How did it run? Did it run at a good pase, did it succeed or fail?
Do you have any tips for running this type of game?
Also what was the most memorable moment from that game?
I mean, I disagree that D&D is only a sandbox environment. Sure, you have to leave players free to make decisions by themselves, but having a tighter narrative isn't a bad thing. This is why I often start players out after they've already accepted an adventure. By giving players a clear objective (and we see this in many pre-written adventures: the story will keep harassing players until they decide to go on the adventure by themselves. ie. if you ignore the redbrands, the redbrands take a pointed interest in you.)
My players seem to like having a crafted narrative designed around them. Sure that means that my adventures often feel like they're part of a TV show rather than a videogame, but that's also not a bad thing. It's a style.
As to answer the original question: I have not run a sandbox game. Personally, I find if you don't focus D&D (like in writing or design) down to one core concept, it tends to get impossibly bloated. That said, other people seem to have made it work in the past. However, Matt Colville has some advice:
Whether or not you should go open world, or structured, I think is a pointless question. I think that unless you have an incredibly docile group of Players - potentially a group of video game soaked newbies that doesn't realize there are any other options - your Players will go off the narrative you pre-designed.
Tightly scripted flowchart adventures are a style - no arguments there; the classic Dungeon Crawl cannot be an open sandbox, for example. Hallways and doors only go to one place. But it's a very fragile one; it only takes one Player rattling the cage to have the whole thing go off the rails, even for a classic dungeon ( we rest, we go back to town, I want to start a bakery ... ). How many "help, my Players are doing unexpected things!" threads have you seen in forums?
Open narrative structures absolutely can get muddy, and bloated, and de-focused - if the DM doesn't make the effort, or develope techniques for managing those risks. It's a skillset, just as managing the game flow around your table is a skill set. If the game gets bloated or muddied, that the DM's responsibility, not a fault in the style.
Forcingyour Players down predetermined paths, opens you up to the risk of your Players pushing back, and "acting up". I'm all for giving the Players/Characters realistic in-world consequences, which are plausible: you knew the orcs were going to attack the town, you did nothing, the town got attacked, people died. But having reality warp in implausible ways to punish them for not following one of the story options the DM has pre-scripted runs the risk of the Players - rightly - feeling that they've fallen into a DM/Player adversarial situation. Designing your Adventures so that it is always realistic for that to happen every time, in every adventure, really strains believability ( Snarky Player: "Oh, let me guess, it just so happens to be that .... " ). That's the kind of table situation where you risk having your Player choose random, whacky, stupid options, just to prove that they can.
I believe the answer is not to start locking down your Player options ( that can/will eventually lead to Players rebelling ) but to expand your skills to be able to deal with fluid situations. That's not because open world is objectively better somehow, it's because the DM thinking that they can maintain complete control of the narrative either is wrong - and the DM finds themselves having to deal with situations they don't know how to deal with - or risks having the Players start to chafe under a Players-vs-DM atmosphere as reality bends to enforce the DM's will.
You can set up a structure in your Adventure design. Many Players will happily follow that structure. But if a DM isn't open to the idea of things going more open narrative, or worse they are incapable of dealing with it, that table is a ticking time bomb which can be disrupted by the first Player to come along who wants to use their Character to explore their own story ideas ( hey, can my cousin join us on Friday? ). I believe it is better to have the skills and techniques to be able to "roll with the punches", and still be able to manage and curate your game.
I think the OP has struck a good balance between structure, and open Player choice, and building in threads toward a larger story. I think it's a good start to a campaign.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Tsda, to answer your questions I have both run, and played in the style of game you are talking about.
It worked out well both times. The reason I feel was because during, what is now called session zero, we all made characters that fit this idea. Also in real life none of us had much spare time, so a quick kill the goblin king, or save the elf princess worked given the lack of prep time we had.
My advice is simple to ask your players, if they want to be part of a bigger world, to do their own thing then a sandbox style game would be better, if however they are enjoying this style of game then by all means enjoy it.
The most memorable thing about when I was playing was me and a good budy made characters that given the idea of the game compete against each other on everything. Who killed the most monsters, who drank the most, who got the most gold, it made the game enjoyable, and led to pranks between games like he hired a thief to pick my pockets, and I hired a bar maid to spike his ale.
Depends on the players. As a player, I thrived on that style of game. It led to the great Spelljammer Steel Convoy of 90-something, where we flew steel from Faerun to Krynn and sold it for all the gold we could carry, then tried to do it again with a whole fleet of ships and got mobbed by dragons on the way in, mobbed by pirates on the way home and mobbed by more dragons once we got back. Killed half the party and we lost 90% of the fleet and ended up deep in the hole to the Emperor of Shou Lung. But the players and the DM have to be on the same page. When I tried to RUN a game like that with different people, everyone was unfocused and listless. For some people, if they wanted to think about someone's five-year career plan, they'd think about their own. Give it a try, you'll soon find out if the players like it or not.
I've run a monthly sandbox campaign for years and it worked really well. What I did as create a map of a small region and put a few places of interest and thought up a few plots. Then as the players play you'll get more and more ideas from what they are doing and how things could evolve; many you'll actually drop as they go other directions, but many of those dropped ideas can be quickly re-purposed.
The important thing for me was that I had some vague 'next big threat' in mind, but as the game evolved I'd just drop and remake ideas depending on where the story went. The game story we ended up with was nothing like what I initially had in mind.
Also don't over-prepare. Keep the ideas rough and only flesh them out as needed. I found that worked much better. Occasionally there would be something big I'd have to prepare, but I'd know it was coming due to player focus. It's also ok to sometimes end the session a bit early if you need time to do that prep.
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Good morning everyone.
I was looking to get some advice on a campaign I have been planning for my players. The setting is the typical D&D fantasy setting homebrew of course. Where the players characters are part of an adventurers guild, much like the Fairy Tail, and Goblin Slayer animes. Where they are free to choose any job that is available. I was thinking about having no more than 5 of these jobs available to the players at a time, with 1-3 of them having to do with a certain plot, and the others being generic fetch, kill, or escort jobs.
So my questions for everyone are.
Have you ever run this style of game?
How did it run? Did it run at a good pase, did it succeed or fail?
Do you have any tips for running this type of game?
Also what was the most memorable moment from that game?
Thank you for your responses, and happy gaming.
I mean, I disagree that D&D is only a sandbox environment. Sure, you have to leave players free to make decisions by themselves, but having a tighter narrative isn't a bad thing. This is why I often start players out after they've already accepted an adventure. By giving players a clear objective (and we see this in many pre-written adventures: the story will keep harassing players until they decide to go on the adventure by themselves. ie. if you ignore the redbrands, the redbrands take a pointed interest in you.)
My players seem to like having a crafted narrative designed around them. Sure that means that my adventures often feel like they're part of a TV show rather than a videogame, but that's also not a bad thing. It's a style.
As to answer the original question: I have not run a sandbox game. Personally, I find if you don't focus D&D (like in writing or design) down to one core concept, it tends to get impossibly bloated. That said, other people seem to have made it work in the past. However, Matt Colville has some advice:
Whether or not you should go open world, or structured, I think is a pointless question. I think that unless you have an incredibly docile group of Players - potentially a group of video game soaked newbies that doesn't realize there are any other options - your Players will go off the narrative you pre-designed.
Tightly scripted flowchart adventures are a style - no arguments there; the classic Dungeon Crawl cannot be an open sandbox, for example. Hallways and doors only go to one place. But it's a very fragile one; it only takes one Player rattling the cage to have the whole thing go off the rails, even for a classic dungeon ( we rest, we go back to town, I want to start a bakery ... ). How many "help, my Players are doing unexpected things!" threads have you seen in forums?
Open narrative structures absolutely can get muddy, and bloated, and de-focused - if the DM doesn't make the effort, or develope techniques for managing those risks. It's a skillset, just as managing the game flow around your table is a skill set. If the game gets bloated or muddied, that the DM's responsibility, not a fault in the style.
Forcing your Players down predetermined paths, opens you up to the risk of your Players pushing back, and "acting up". I'm all for giving the Players/Characters realistic in-world consequences, which are plausible: you knew the orcs were going to attack the town, you did nothing, the town got attacked, people died. But having reality warp in implausible ways to punish them for not following one of the story options the DM has pre-scripted runs the risk of the Players - rightly - feeling that they've fallen into a DM/Player adversarial situation. Designing your Adventures so that it is always realistic for that to happen every time, in every adventure, really strains believability ( Snarky Player: "Oh, let me guess, it just so happens to be that .... " ). That's the kind of table situation where you risk having your Player choose random, whacky, stupid options, just to prove that they can.
I believe the answer is not to start locking down your Player options ( that can/will eventually lead to Players rebelling ) but to expand your skills to be able to deal with fluid situations. That's not because open world is objectively better somehow, it's because the DM thinking that they can maintain complete control of the narrative either is wrong - and the DM finds themselves having to deal with situations they don't know how to deal with - or risks having the Players start to chafe under a Players-vs-DM atmosphere as reality bends to enforce the DM's will.
You can set up a structure in your Adventure design. Many Players will happily follow that structure. But if a DM isn't open to the idea of things going more open narrative, or worse they are incapable of dealing with it, that table is a ticking time bomb which can be disrupted by the first Player to come along who wants to use their Character to explore their own story ideas ( hey, can my cousin join us on Friday? ). I believe it is better to have the skills and techniques to be able to "roll with the punches", and still be able to manage and curate your game.
I think the OP has struck a good balance between structure, and open Player choice, and building in threads toward a larger story. I think it's a good start to a campaign.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Tsda, to answer your questions I have both run, and played in the style of game you are talking about.
It worked out well both times. The reason I feel was because during, what is now called session zero, we all made characters that fit this idea. Also in real life none of us had much spare time, so a quick kill the goblin king, or save the elf princess worked given the lack of prep time we had.
My advice is simple to ask your players, if they want to be part of a bigger world, to do their own thing then a sandbox style game would be better, if however they are enjoying this style of game then by all means enjoy it.
The most memorable thing about when I was playing was me and a good budy made characters that given the idea of the game compete against each other on everything. Who killed the most monsters, who drank the most, who got the most gold, it made the game enjoyable, and led to pranks between games like he hired a thief to pick my pockets, and I hired a bar maid to spike his ale.
Depends on the players. As a player, I thrived on that style of game. It led to the great Spelljammer Steel Convoy of 90-something, where we flew steel from Faerun to Krynn and sold it for all the gold we could carry, then tried to do it again with a whole fleet of ships and got mobbed by dragons on the way in, mobbed by pirates on the way home and mobbed by more dragons once we got back. Killed half the party and we lost 90% of the fleet and ended up deep in the hole to the Emperor of Shou Lung. But the players and the DM have to be on the same page. When I tried to RUN a game like that with different people, everyone was unfocused and listless. For some people, if they wanted to think about someone's five-year career plan, they'd think about their own. Give it a try, you'll soon find out if the players like it or not.
I've run a monthly sandbox campaign for years and it worked really well. What I did as create a map of a small region and put a few places of interest and thought up a few plots. Then as the players play you'll get more and more ideas from what they are doing and how things could evolve; many you'll actually drop as they go other directions, but many of those dropped ideas can be quickly re-purposed.
The important thing for me was that I had some vague 'next big threat' in mind, but as the game evolved I'd just drop and remake ideas depending on where the story went. The game story we ended up with was nothing like what I initially had in mind.
Also don't over-prepare. Keep the ideas rough and only flesh them out as needed. I found that worked much better. Occasionally there would be something big I'd have to prepare, but I'd know it was coming due to player focus. It's also ok to sometimes end the session a bit early if you need time to do that prep.