Mission based can be awesome especially in a fixed setting, like a city, with the stable cast of NPCs and lot's of mystery and intrigue.  

The secret for me for me about running a good mission based campaign is multi-threading. Rather than just focusing on one adventure at a time make sure that as one adventure is in progress you introduce and foreshadow elements of the next ones.  This will make the transition to the next adventure feel more natural.

Better still, try to get multiple cases running in parallel. This will give the players more choices and make the game session feel more open. Of course if you overdo this it can end up confusing the players.    

One of the best things about multi-threading is that allows the GM to test out plot hooks without committing to them. Say for instance in the course of investigating a mobster the players discover some unrelated dirt on the local TV personality, chances are the player's reaction will reveal to the GM whether discovery interests the player and should be developed into it's own adventure or just background fluff.

Eventually, as Benoist mentions, the players might actually come up with their own goals and shift into a more  sandbox mode. Or not, or maybe you keep flip-flopping between mission based and sandbox. It's all good.

Going in line with previous - start the PCs as someone who is under someone's command (mercenaries, soldiers etc. etc.) then, after one - two missions, you give them next ones...while also they have their own opportunities, that they had discovered while on earlier missions.

Quote from: Rincewind1;521062Going in line with previous - start the PCs as someone who is under someone's command (mercenaries, soldiers etc. etc.) then, after one - two missions, you give them next ongtoes...while also they have their own opportunities, that they had discovered while on earlier missions.

This is classic Warhammer 40k, it's totally how you run Dark Heresy (skwee) love that game as GM or player.

Mostly player given the system has "quirks" and a steep learning curve as a GM. At least for me.

I do quest buying at the end of a session. During the session I dream up new side quests on the fly, and at the end I offer my ideas. However, if I come up with good ideas after last session's end, I may show up next session with those new side quest ideas also on the list. And what shows up on the list tends to stay on the list for simplicity -- until I wrap up a campaign main quest (if there's one at all), where it'd be a convenient place to time out some quests.

And when I say sidequest, it's more of a highlighted encounter or a catchy title. Like if the party met a beggar on the road towards the village, and the PCs interacted with the beggar in an interesting way, I might 'quest' off of that at the session's end. I might say, "Traveling Beggar, 1 plot coin." or "Hobo murmurs need of Murder Hobos (joke), 1 plot coin." Outside of the title I generally have not much but a rough sketch.

But opened side quests are available while players are on the 'main quest.' So it's just about them telling me what they want to pursue next session. Yet they must deal with any location and travel time issues. And any outstanding quests with time limits keep ticking down as well.

It's not a tradition sandbox, I think. Well, it may be in core structure. But it starts with a push, even though it improvs a lot after the fact and front loads pacing upon the players. It's structured in a mini-game way that seems more like a video game. Yet, outside of the first session's general campaign impetus, the rest tends to snowball from the PC's own decisions.

Thankfully while trying this new method I haven't had to deal with very shy players. But I feel I'll be getting a few quite soon. I anticipate that they'll just contribute towards opening larger sidequests. I'd like a few cheaper ones on the list so that they can do something on their own when other players decide to "storm the castle" or the like w/o them (I'm trying to transition towards a more open table format). But we'll see.

Ideally I'm looking forward to this method helping open table format in a sandbox so players feel free to not need a consistent party to do anything. Something like 4e Encounters open table but without the linear campaign or wait for a minimum number of players for a quorum. With opened sidequests of varying difficulty people should routinely have something to play when I'm ready, I hope. Edit: it's sorta like using the overland map like a dungeon, but without the dungeon... I hope it works!

So everyone is in as long as they show up they get a chance to put in what their character's would like to try outside the pressure of saying it IG or IC, , cool.

Bangs are good, yes.  In my Yggsburgh campaign I allowed a brief scene-setting opening which was quiet - PCs getting ready to travel on a stage coach with NPC aristocrats - then hit them with a bang - highwaymen lying in wait.  Their response shaped the whole campaign.

For certain players, you'll find a sandbox works best if it's NPC-based rather than  hex/geography-based. Noisms discusses this approach on his blog re his Cyberpunk campaign - http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/

Instead of/as well as detailing tons of hexes, you details tons of NPCs, perhaps in a city, with conflicting/competing goals and motivations.  The PCs have freedom in who they latch on to, who they oppose etc.

I'd think for ex-WoD players used to vampire politics etc this approach might be particularly useful?

A basic notion that probably bears saying: sandbox does not equal "no adventure hooks". (Just becaue, y'know, I have read blog entries out there about campaigns like that.)

If the party is in a city, have 3-4 adventure ideas with enough thought behind them to last a session. They don't have to be comlpicated: there's an abandoned temple/mausoleum/palace with rumoured riches inside. A notable person has disappeared and there's probably a prize to whoever finds him/her. A band of criminals made off with some a haul, and they're hiding in the sewers while the city is under lockdown.

Then once the players pick on (or several) options to work, go into reactive mode and build on the logical consequences of their actions.

Quote from: The Butcher;520990Have the much-vaunted Talk on What Everyone Expects From The Gaming Table?

This is never a bad idea no matter what type of game you want to run. If a whole table full of players honestly tells you they enjoy being led around a campaign via storylines then have at it.

Quote from: The Butcher;520990There's always the possibility that they won't bite, i.e. they won't engage the sandbox. While there are a few handy tricks for getting them involved (e.g. ninjas attack), most of them feel heavy-handed and trite when executed repeatedly.

I have run quite a few Sandboxes and none of them have been completely "It's up to you" in nature. Sure, the players have absolute control over what they do, where they go and so on. However, they don't have control over what NPCs do, especially off-camera NPCs.

Quote from: The Butcher;520990What do you do then? Fall back to a more structured model, e.g. mission-based stuff? Try and find new hooks to get them to interact with the setting? Have the much-vaunted Talk on What Everyone Expects From The Gaming Table?

In my Sandboxes, I always have a plotline, or normally several plotlines, that chunk along in the background, sometimes engaging with the PCs and sometimes producing news flashes and so on. Quite often the PCs get involved in some of the plotlines and take them over, generating their own plotlines from them.

It is always possible to introduce some major NPCs as patrons or employers as a short-term measure, perhaps for one or two scenarios.

Quote from: The Butcher;520990There's always the possibility that they won't bite

If they won't bite the multitude of scenario hooks in a properly designed sandbox, why would they be any more likely to bite the solitary hook in the mission-based game?

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;521051Shipwreck.

They're stuck on an unknown land. They have no way to back the fuck out, as the ship's gone.  They've got their starter gear, and have to explore the damn place if they want to survive.  Back against the wall, nowhere to run = they'll fight like hell (i.e. engage and adventure) because there's no other choice.

I've used that one before, as well as having the PCs start off in a town or stronghold under siege. Starting them off as slaves can be fun because you don't have to wait half an hour for them to buy equipment. In media res is my preferred method for kicking off a campaign.

I'm way too lazy to come up with missions, quests, or anything of the sort.  Nor do I take the effort to set up a traditional sandbox.  That crap takes planning beforehand.  Mostly just make stuff up as we go.

I simply have the world operate like it is a semi-real place.  Things happen, the players can involve themselves in whatever they feel like, but none of it is set up specifically to involve them.  

Say it is a D&D game in some village.  Makes sense for me that a traveling peddler may show up.  If they interact with the peddler, maybe he has something interesting to tell them, maybe he is an ass.  Whatever pops in the old noggin.

Whatever the players interact with, I just have the world react in however seems logical.  If the PCs kill off the asshole peddler, for instance, makes sense he may have family somewhere who might care.  

I've never seen players who wouldn't interact with anything.  They do, however, often ignore stuff.  No biggie, something else will happen.  If they ignore the peddler, maybe they see peasants start working on clay masks for an upcoming trade fair.  

I don't think it takes big whiz-bangs like ninja attacks.  Just riff off whatever the players interact with.  Small things can grow into epic adventures when the dead peddler's family comes looking for vengeance against the PCs in the middle of the trade fair.

Quote from: Old One Eye;521335I'm way too lazy to come up with missions, quests, or anything of the sort.  Nor do I take the effort to set up a traditional sandbox.  That crap takes planning beforehand.  Mostly just make stuff up as we go.

I simply have the world operate like it is a semi-real place.  Things happen, the players can involve themselves in whatever they feel like, but none of it is set up specifically to involve them.  

Say it is a D&D game in some village.  Makes sense for me that a traveling peddler may show up.  If they interact with the peddler, maybe he has something interesting to tell them, maybe he is an ass.  Whatever pops in the old noggin.

Whatever the players interact with, I just have the world react in however seems logical.  If the PCs kill off the asshole peddler, for instance, makes sense he may have family somewhere who might care.  

I've never seen players who wouldn't interact with anything.  They do, however, often ignore stuff.  No biggie, something else will happen.  If they ignore the peddler, maybe they see peasants start working on clay masks for an upcoming trade fair.  

I don't think it takes big whiz-bangs like ninja attacks.  Just riff off whatever the players interact with.  Small things can grow into epic adventures when the dead peddler's family comes looking for vengeance against the PCs in the middle of the trade fair.

I'm in this camp, but let me articulate it differently.

A Sandbox needs a couple of components to make it work.  The idea is that things are happening in the world, and the PCS are allowed to make less scripted responses to the events of the world.
Again, as has been mentioned, a good sandbox GM has enmeshed the backstories of the pcs into the setting, to make more real the connection between the pcs and the world itself.  This provides some emotion, direction, or, to use a psych term, this provides some dynamic energy.  If you haven't done a good job here, you have to provide a lot more energy yourself as the GM later.
As a few people mentioned, there are normally multiple plotlines running around that the pcs bump into, and they are free to react as they will to these multiple, and normally multi-level plotlines.  I normally recomend having some of these that seem unrelated to actually be part of the same story.  

The next component that is a necessary one is the idea of, "World in Motion".  All of those storylines and plots running around are not static, and it is the GMs job to psuh the fallout from these plots advancing.

And then you need to get fun, and synergize this World in Motion with the earlier enmeshing of the character into the setting.  Not only did the month's cash deposits from the Exchequer's office get stolen...but the word on the street is that oner of the character's guilds is involved.  Yes, there were strange lights in the top floor of the old library after midnight...but a pair of mages from the Magic School the group's mage came from investigated an dissapeared.  The ravaging humanoid band out in the western fields continued their rampage, and destroyed the farm of the fighter's cousins; and the group that routed them is feted in front of the group; and lo!  The bitter rival of the group's archer is part of the group that won fame and wealth for helping route that band!

I have certainly seen, even in my full-blown Cast of Thousands, World-in-motion style campaigns, situations where the players, completely unused to the idea that they have to be the active participants in finding adventure, end up doing basically nothing and then complain the campaign is "boring".

So I can't say I'm a hardliner about the sandbox's "impartiality" needing to be absolutely pure.  I'm more than willing to make things happen, to fudge encounter checks at least, to leave hooks right in front of players' fucking faces, if it means that it will get them to actually start to interact with the setting.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;521513I have certainly seen, even in my full-blown Cast of Thousands, World-in-motion style campaigns, situations where the players, completely unused to the idea that they have to be the active participants in finding adventure, end up doing basically nothing and then complain the campaign is "boring".

So I can't say I'm a hardliner about the sandbox's "impartiality" needing to be absolutely pure.  I'm more than willing to make things happen, to fudge encounter checks at least, to leave hooks right in front of players' fucking faces, if it means that it will get them to actually start to interact with the setting.

RPGPundit

Yeah that's basically it. The idea being to just kickstart the thing and then take off the training wheels. It's just a matter of getting them involved and then the campaign elements unfold and fall into place by action-reaction from there.