How to Start A Sandbox Campaign

These are five things I think every DM should put into their sandbox campaigns before session 1.

Like I say in the video, no sandbox needs these things but I have found that most successful sandbox campaigns explicitly or implicitly have these features.

All of the advice in this video is based on my own subjective experience. If you are already a DM and use a different method, good for you. However, this advice has worked for me and my many DnD groups for years.

THE LIST
1. A Guiding Light
2. The Starting Town
A. Tavern
B. Seat of Government or Power
C. The Shop
D. Quest Location
E. The Flair
3. A Quest
4. Mentor NPC
5. Conditions to End Your Campaign

[enterthedungeon]

What are things you all do before session 1?

[lashwrithe]

Had this great Kobold run market in one of my games I ran. Half of the stuff in the market was either junk (made to look magical), cursed, or magical (disguised to look like junk). The party figured out that the market was somehow off, but didn't figure out what was actually going on. My favorite was a "true strike arrow" which "would always hit its target", but was actually a kobold (invisible) that grabbed the arrow and ran it at whatever you were aiming at.

[Tysto]

Another tip: make your players like your town's good NPCs (especially authority figures) by having the NPC be nice & give them something. Maybe a PC rolled badly for starting money; have the NPC give them something they need. Boom: friend for life.

[NineteenNinety]

I have played D&D since I was a kid, and I've DMed for almost 12 years now. I came to this video randomly while trying to find inspiration for my second attempt at running a West Marches game. From the title and thumbnail, I thought "okay, another sandbox advice video, it's not too long, let's just get this over with..."

What I could have never expected was to get some of the best advice, unrelated to sandboxing or WM, but general DM advice I have never heard before and never pondered by my own will.

"Campaign's that start off super serious, turn into joke fests by the end. And campaigns that start off really fun and light and airy, they become the most intense campaigns."

How I've never gotten here, and why every TTRPG sage YouTube channel doesn't have a 15 minute video on this topic BAFFLES ME!

WOW! Instant sub! Probably the best advice for any GM, brand spanking new to seasoned veteran!

[vikingshark]

I (accidentally) made my Mentor NPC the source of all homebrew rules and items, forgotten magic (AKA updates to spells from older editions that no longer appear in 5e), the source for tweaks and reskins to class abilities and features, and a repository of all obscure and esoteric knowledge. It pretty much guarantees that the party will also go back to the Mentor NPC, and that the Mentor NPC will always need some rare ingredient, component or item in order to turn out (for example) a potion that eliminates the need to breathe for 24 hours.

[nachschub]

The Last point is actually very good I now can say that from experience. I run a sandbox campaign for a little more then 2 years now and I still not have an endpoint in mind but starting to realise for a while now that I definitly should at least start building toward one, really good video maybe even my favorite you ever did great work man.

[nicholascarter]

"We love to get paid" is all that's keeping me and my coworkers together

[AsciiKing]

Bang on. I've been playing for decades and I spend a lot of time thinking about how campaigns should start. You've nailed it and taught me something, too.

[mahromsajady]

Great video! I'm glad you are uploading more, you're my favorite dnd content creator

[puffmogie]

Perfect timing! Just starting a sandbox campaign next week

[Frederic_S]

A very good advice: start in a fun lighthearted way to get your players invested and then hit them with drama, dilemmas and serious plots! 👍👍

[shelbyfleshood]

loving this January series! Keep it up!

[DaDunge]

You know what I like these. I think you make good points.

[DND]

I run my campaign in a modern SCP Style world, the furst quest had been thier first encounter with the anomalous (Well, with anomalous beings at least. Some were aware).

The reason for them staying together is that they all got "recruited" without choice into an organization called the UPA. They decided they want to cross the UPA and join another faction (some of them are half non-human and the UPA is racist towards non-humans, and the only humans is a wannabe magician and the UPA also hates magic so they all decided to leave.)

A side quest they did accidentally granted them an ally that is improsioned by the UPA and their organization is working on releasing them, and now the party is planning to convince the other organization to turn the rescue mission into a full assault (as they have insider knowledge)

[marinakonrad]

"throw out some nonchalant bullshit and see if they bite" is basically my GMing style too :D

I would also add that the Flair needs to connect to your Guiding Light and also to the bigger plots/central tension of the region

[pythonau]

Define campaign. Because a campaign to me, especially a sandbox, is just a series of adventures set in the same world, much like an open world PC game. The players can come and go as they wish they can use the same characters or change them as they want. There is no grand story with a start, middle and end. How can it end when new characters are entering all the time, old characters become NPCs or dungeon dressing, the world just evolves.

[rexaxis]

I had a campaign begin with my party waking in an empty town, tables set, very cozy, but abandoned, the party were all amnesiac.i realized making this set up was probably not the best for an open world, or atleast not yet. I thought I was very clever for naming it blanquemoore.

[thesonofdormammu]

I've been playing since the early 80's, we basically played sandbox with purchased modules thrown in. Like I would throw out plot hooks and if they bit I pulled out a module and we played it, or I just came up with stuff on the spot. It makes it a lot easier if people miss sessions or get bored.

[topclips]

Doing an Old Western. The entire first adventure takes place on a train. They are all Outlaws on a prison Train. They have to work together to escape the train. They learn they were all framed by the same person. Player will get a feel of the system and maybe thing it's going to be little unconnected missions but at the end of the train mission it will open up into 1830s Texas. Arkansas, Louisiana border. The major settlements and such all there

[PerfectionHunter]

07:32 Campaings that start off super serious turn into joke fests ... and campaigns that start out light and fun become the most intense campaigns" YES! This is exactly my experience as well. My first campaigns started out serious but everyone just joked around so i made it into a joke-campain and everyone got super serious.
BUT: The friendliest of NPCs have always been the ones that the PCs trust the least, right from the start. So i of course used this to bring forth NPCs that were happy and joking and suddenly trying to rip their heads off while laughing. Trust me... this + a happy and colorful world puts the fear inside the PCs. That's how i turned a jovial setting into a horror story scarier than some obvious Stradh shiet.