How to Start A Sandbox Campaign

i think without a doubt sandbox dnd games are the hardest type of d d campaign to run at their worst sandbox campaigns can become boring uninteresting slogs that really can destroy dnd group in this series we're gonna go over how you make and run a sandbox campaign starting with this video before session one what five things do you need and of course no sandbox campaign needs these five things however whenever i've run a successful sandbox campaign and i count successful as players having fun lasting for more than six sessions going to the higher levels of d d play it incorporated these five things so let's start off strong number one create a guiding light for your sandbox campaign what is your touchstone to keep thematic integrity this thematic integrity is important for making the world feel real because when you are creating a sandbox campaign you're not just dropping the players into an amalgamation of world or at least you shouldn't there needs to be a linking thread and i would say that this guiding light is very important and mostly overlooked by a lot of the d d community because part of the fun in a sandbox is going around in a living breathing world and with this guiding light this thematic touchstone you're able to create a more grounded space at least grounded in terms of your own rules for the setting and a touchstone can be anything it could be a game of thrones s campaign it could be a tone maybe it's dark and gritty gothic horror maybe it's light upbeat and fun but whatever the case have something that you can constantly go back to and don't get hung up on choosing your guiding light for this sandbox campaign it can be as vague or as specific as you want essentially just understand what genre mood or world feel you're trying to achieve second thing you need though is starting town and this is daunting for a lot of new players but i'm gonna break it down the starting town doesn't need to be grand you in fact you don't need to make even the rest of the map just the starting town is enough for session one and honestly the starting town is probably enough for the first two or three sessions if not more depending on how much you build it out and honestly you don't even need a map of your starting town you just need five locations and you want to know what those yeah you want to know what those locations are i'm getting to it i'm getting to it number one you need a tavern this is standard fantasy fare your players are going to want to go to a tavern maybe they meet in a tavern maybe they need a place to sleep maybe they need contacts or a place to meet up whatever tavern is just your grounding point in any fantasy location if the players don't know what to do or they don't know where to go or who to talk to you know what they do they go to the tavern so number one you need the tavern two you're going to need a seat of government or power now the seat of quote-unquote government can be anything it can be a bandit captain's hideout maybe it's just this massive throne which a giant sits on maybe it's a temple because the ruling government type is a theocracy it's up to you but you just need some seat of power so that the party can go and talk to officials with people in charge if need be and even if they're not going to go meet those people having it there grounds the world and it allows you to dm on the fly if you need them to go somewhere you need them to talk to someone you could say go to the citadel that is where blah blah is and you know what for session one that's good enough number three you need a shop because the players will probably want to go shopping if they can so what's gonna be in this shop well maybe a few normal common items probably one or two magic items from uncommon to rare rarity your players are obviously going to want some magic items and even if they are out of their current price range just having them there as a goal is enough because that will create another plot hook where maybe they weren't sold on doing this quest but knowing that if they complete the quest they get this cool magic item helps and you can weave in more narrative threads from there but the promise of a really cool magic item is usually enough to get the opening session underway if everything else fails number four you need the quest location and what is the quest location well it's whatever you need for the quest if they're going to a house it's going to be the house they're going to a cave outside the town it's going to be the cave it can be the dungeon if they're going to go explore a dungeon session one whatever it is just make sure you have the quest location prepared and five the flare now what's the flare you might be asking well it's something that sets your town apart from every other town what makes this particular location unique this is gonna be the thing that players remember remember that town with the cows that had four wings remember that town where it was situated on the side of a mountain and you had to ride hover bikes to get across the streets and things like that go wild let your imagination flow this particular flare since again it's your starting location should be basically your best if you have a really cool idea for some place use it here ideally the flare should inspire fantasy and wonder in your players and make them excited to go and explore all the other cool locations you must have lined up now i won't tell your players that you probably haven't made them up yet but you can sure hint at some or maybe just throw some nonchalant out and see if they take the bait and want to keep going on to the next location and you can add a ton more to your starting town but those five things are pretty much what you need also and this is a bonus side tip don't place all of these locations within the bounds of your town maybe the shop is three miles away from the town ran by a reclusive kobold that somehow has lots of magic items basically make your players move around don't have everything clustered together in like a hub city like world of warcraft have them spread out have them explore usually this is gonna be the quest location that you're gonna throw outside the bounds of the town but try mixing it up a bit number three you need a quest that brings the party together and that's a very important terminology there brings the party together this quest should be about forming the party into a group so that they can continue their sandbox adventures this quest line does not need to relate to any other questline or story in my experience simply make the most fun quest you can think of for that opening because you have to hook the players you have to hook the party emphasize fun this is not a narratively driven campaign where you should probably start with the narrative this is a sandbox let it be open and free the more fun your opening quest is the more it will make your players ready to play your second session so they can continue having fun because honestly that's the name of the game if you're running a sandbox campaign make it fun make it interesting and have it in this grounded world with your guiding light and trust me if you can stay consistent with that guiding light have that quest that is fun that brings everyone together and make the world feel real eventually it just is gonna get serious like in my experience campaigns that start off super serious turn into joke fests by the end and campaigns that start off really light and fun and airy they become the most intense campaigns because in that joking atmosphere you're gonna fall in love with the characters so have this quest be a time where the party can fall in love with their characters fall in love with your world your setting and just make it as fun as you can and also of course at the end of the quest have a reason why the party's gonna stay together don't just have this weird thing where everyone looks to each other and goes hey we just did good work um do you wanna i don't know be an adventuring party now after just one adventure i mean sure you can do that and your players will probably do that for you if push comes to shove because again we're all playing a game together but try to make that as easy as possible maybe give them a second plot hook at the end of the quest that allows them to go forward maybe a quest giver gives them another thing that they can do together because they were so effective be creative think out of the box but just give your players a reason to stay together as a party number four a mentor npc a key ingredient for many campaigns in a sandbox world is a mentor npc this npc is a touchstone they can give out quests or information or maybe most importantly role-playing opportunities they allow you to explore facets of the world because they know a lot of the lore and they can talk to the party and help them and guide them through the sandbox they are a friend a mentor a potential ally in combat whatever you need them to be mentor npcs also helps stop the slog fest that can sometimes happen a sandbox where the players complete a quest and then they don't know what to do next they're kind of spinning their wheels they have so many things they might want to do down time forever seems like an option and so they'll just keep spinning their wheels again and again they'll go to shops and before you know it's been two or three sessions and you haven't really done too much maybe you've pushed about but what are you doing you don't really know and the players kind of begin to lose interest that's when the mentor npc comes in where you feel if your players are going into this cycle where they're just not getting out of the downtime they're not getting on to the next quest that's when you can send in the mentor npc and say hey i heard about this thing over here and the players will say oh what a quest something we can do let's go follow that trust me never fails players will latch on to a quest almost any quest almost immediately if they've been spinning their wheels for a long time and they just want action just trust me having a mentor npc in a sandbox campaign that the players can constantly go to for advice or information quests etc is going to save you and your players a lot of time and headaches and finally five and this might be controversial but you need conditions for ending this campaign and let me explain this because i think that this is one of the most important things for crafting a sandbox is knowing when to end it because it's important to know when the story is done and when you and your players have had enough of this campaign and are ready to move on to the next it will help crystallize things for you else it can be a slog and the condition can be as vague or specific as you want for ending the campaign you just need a condition maybe your condition is when the players kill this god with this weapon the sandbox is over and we know that it's done or it can just simply be when the party has found peace as vague as you want it to be but by knowing the ending you're able to give a satisfying conclusion no matter what if the party comes to you and they say hey we're loving the campaign but we think we're done with these characters can we wrap it up you can say no problem because i knew when this campaign was going to end i've been setting up these conditions since the beginning and now at this point you've already done 80 of the work we'll probably rush through the last two or three sessions and then we'll give all these characters a satisfying conclusion now some people in the comments might argue that it's a sandbox campaign the dm basically has no control over the story which i like to push back against that a little bit as a dm in a sandbox campaign you're curating the adventure you're curating the quests that are put before the players you're curating the experience if the experience begins to go stale you need to recognize that and you don't want to overstay your welcome in a campaign leave the players on the highest note you can with the best memories that you can and personally for me and for other dm's that i've helped coach up i think that this is the key knowing when it's over with those five things you should have everything you need to run your first session of a sandbox campaign subscribe because i will be continuing this series and will go in further depth about how to create and run a fantastic sandbox campaign until that next time though check out this video right here and thank you for entering the dungeon you

Channel: Enter the Dungeon

Views: 22,011

Keywords: dungeons and dragons, dungeon master, dnd, 5e, 5th edition, tutorial, tabletop games, role playing, rpg, memes, trending, roleplay, guide, writing, good game, roleplaying games, tabletop gaming, homebrew campaign 5e, homebrew campaign tips, homebrew campaigns, homebrew campaigns d&d, homebrew campaign dnd, homebrew dnd campaigns, homebrew dnd 5e, homebrew d&d games, homebrew campaign, dm tips, dm advice, sandbox campaign, sandbox campaign dnd, how to run a homebrew campaign

Id: VeKgTFvNBDo

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 04 2022