Friday, 9 February 2007
Open ended campaigning
I tend to let the players drive the campaign and explore a world. The GM's roles are many, and populating the world with characters and obstacles is how I try to run my campaigns.
Currently, how I gear up for a session is setting a stack of index cards with possible encounters and major plot points. How the players see each of these is up to them. The notes are long enough to provide, and expand, narrative and not so involved that, after no amount of hinting or prodding should the players just chose to do something else, I haven't invested a lot of time to see it wasted.
Knowing enough about the game world to make and stage the scene is key IMHO. And it doesn't take much to stage how dangerous The Great Forest can be.
Now, making a trip into the forest interesting, and not just about the beautiful trees.
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A contributing factor to the success of open ended campaigning is how often the group plays together. I think regular meets are suited better for published campaigns, those of old (Temple of Elemental Evil) or new (AoM).
Meeting infrequently, once or twice a month, allows the GM more time to consider the players previous mis-adventures in relation to a possible free form story narrative. This is not to say that a GM quick on his or her feet could not do this in more frequently meeting groups, but I have experienced that this can devolve into shallow stories and "Monty Hall" dungeoneering (it could just be the GMs I've played with though.)
I'm trying to do this in my WFRP campaign as well. I'm a little afraid to do totally without a structured adventure though. I'm running them through AoM with some side threads dealing with each character's past or ambition. After AoM wraps up, I hope to go a little more free form like you describe.