What do you do if your players won't do shit in a sandbox game? Presume you've given them several opportunities and several hooks and multiple options to bite at - even random miscellaneous things in the wilderness to do and explore like a videogame. Yet still, all they ever really do is move from city to city, spending their nights at the taverns having irrelevant wasteful conversations with irrelevant NPCs.

I'm genuinely considering just introducing some kind of villain that's after them personally so they're forced to deal with him, but they do so little that they've never slighted anyone powerful enough to make such an effort.

>>95961016 (OP)
The best way is to make them personally slighted by the villain and one of the easiest ways is to steal their shit.

>>95961016 (OP)
What system are you using? What does it reward?

>>95961016 (OP)
>What do you do if your players won't do shit in a sandbox game?
nudge them

> spending their nights at the taverns having irrelevant wasteful conversations with irrelevant NPCs.
have those NPCs be quest givers then
have one of the random tavern patrons be someone with a missing wife or something and he needs some big strong men who need to go out and rescue her in exchange for treasure

>but they do so little that they've never slighted anyone powerful enough to make such an effort.
this is a "call to adventure", the heroes generally have little choice in the matter when it comes looking for them
maybe a random cup they found was actually the childhood toy of an evil overlord
and now, without even knowing it, they made an enemy

>>95961115
Seriously gonna try this, but they don't have anything worth stealing yet since they're only level 1 (PF2e).

Buuut I think I can work with that. Make it something relatively small, and unearned so there's no strong feeling of "we worked hard to get this". Boom, +1 sword in the middle of the street.

>>95961120
PF2e and honestly one of the things I like about it is that it rewards basically anything that could be considered something. Convince an army to flee? 20 XP. Slay a gang of goblins? 80 XP. Fight off a viking invasion and save a local noblewoman? 120 XP total. Stuff like that. Pretty much as long as you're moving towards a goal in this system you will gain XP. The problem I have is that My players quite literally never move towards their goals personal or otherwise.

To be fair, we've been on a year and a half long break and we've only recently handled our first 2 sessions, but before that break this behaviour (or lack thereof) was extremely common for them. Their first session they faffed about after the intro, and they were a bit better in the second game - one of My players even said to himself "I'm wasting time, I know I'm wasting time, I need to stop doing that, I'm gonna go talk to a guard for information", so I have faith that he'll make improvements as we go but just in case that doesn't happen I genuinely want a "get busy playing or get busy dying" kind of threat to push them into fun like DOOM Eternal does.

>>95961143
>nudge them
Tried. Has only recently worked - they picked up something last session but they habitually drop whatever they start within a session or 2 so if that happens I want a plan B. To be clear, they do not drop one thing to pursue another - they give up entirely and then faff about in taverns.

>have those NPCs be quest givers then
Doable.

>maybe a random cup they found was actually the childhood toy of an evil overlord
Might seriously try this too, it's just ridiculous enough to work.

>>95961193
>. To be clear, they do not drop one thing to pursue another - they give up entirely and then faff about in taverns.
if theres just a long string of unfinished quests, then your party will eventually earn a reputation as hucksters who just abandon obligations

so people might actually just hate them, find them untrustworthy, put up posters with their faces on them labelled "unreliable flakes: do not hire"
and if they keep taking jobs and then dropping them, someone is eventually coming after them unless they do one big job that will overshadow all their bad PR

>>95961016 (OP)
What do your hooks actually look like? Can you give some examples? What was your starting situation like?

>>95961016 (OP)
If your players can physically dodge the quests you're giving them, then your sandbox is probably too big. A West Marches style game where things occur over a large span of territory is fine when your players are good problem solvers and can focus hard on a single task. But if they have extreme difficulty managing leads and trying to figure things out, you should confine them to a smaller space where all content focuses on a specific problem. For example, a small 10x18 hexcrawl focused around solving a specific quest, with all locations on the map having minor side content, clues, or major quest content.

Understanding how to navigate (and run) sandboxes is a skill. You could be bad at it. Your players could also be bad at it. The best thing to do is probably scale down, simplify, and eliminate the possibility of getting completely off track. Faffing about is really still okay. Taking a day or two from a quest to carouse and explore the town is not actually a problem, and can help invest your players in the setting. However, giving up on quests and doing something is a gigantic red flag. Active quests should basically always get resolved before PCs leave an area. If this is happening habitually it means something is wrong. A couple bulletpoints in greentext form that may also help:

>If you need to use content unrelated to the main quest, ensure it has an at most 1-session level of activity associated with it, and the reward should incidentally contribute to the active quest.
>Ensure there are at least 3+ ways to discover major plot clues at every site, and ensure there are at least 3 redundant kinds of clues across the active area of the quest
>Minimize red herrings. Players will ALWAYS pursue the incorrect lead. False leads should always in some way help further the quest line when resolved.

>>95961016 (OP)
If they don't do things then I railroad them, pretty simple stuff. Some players don't want the open sandbox, they yearn for the rails.

>>95961016 (OP)
There's must at least 1 threat giving them reason to act:
>a plague in the region, forcing them to din a solution or move away, starting over
>A war close to them, forcing them to pick sides or run away
>A PC receive a prophetic dream, forcing them to act or suffer the consequences
There's a lot of stuff you can do.

>>95961016 (OP)
Roleplay as a functional adult and talk to them about what you and they actually want from the game.

>>95961016 (OP)
>Players are fucking about

You didn't give them a sense of urgency.
I got a "Doom track" I employ in a lot of games for that reason. A simple, plainly visible number line that starts at 0 and goes to 20 (usually, can be shorter or longer). I tell the players up front that something really bad is tied to the "Doom track" and they don't want the token I got at zero to reach the end. Finding out what that big problem is, however, is all on them.
Every so often, that token gets advanced. Especially when they fuck off for a session. I got a timeline for the major event broken down into segments that match those numbered points and the world state will reflect those changes. I had the players ignore it once and the kingdom they were fucking about in got overrun by demons, razed to the ground, their characters killed and shoved into hell, and any future games featured a nuked spot where that area used to be and it's a source of demonic incursions that hasn't been closed off yet.

They don't ignore that track anymore. If you aren't prepared to go to that level then you won't fix it.

>>95961321
This.

>>95961016 (OP)
OK, time for devils advocate.
Why shouldn't they faff around?
Let's take the genre name seriously: Fantasy. What do they fantasise about? Probably not hardship, fear and death. In #current year# life is hard enough. What you've given them is a virtual holiday, the opportunity to live a life that's carefree and to meet people and have good times. Amazing.
What do YOU fantasise about? Not pain or death or hardship either, because you've chosen a role in the game immune to all three (though hardship is part of the GM mantle in re prep work I guess). Do you fantasise about causing pain? Being the emotional centre of someone's world in such a way that you know they're not faking? Constructing elaborate puzzles and being praised for your ingenuity and cunning? If you were merely in it to present a rich world you wouldn't care if it was in taverns or caverns.

I really think the only route is for you to reflect on what you want, listen to what they want and negotiate a compromise. Unilaterally changing the tone is only going to sabotage your game.

>>95961016 (OP)
You provided them several hooks, but is there anything compelling them to take any of those hooks?
For example, I've been part of a 3.5e sandbox campaign for the last 3 or so years, and we always stumble onto a number of different things we could pursue at any given moment, but there's usually two or three things that are doomsday scenarios of some sort, something directly related to one of the PCs, or simply something that the part is interested in (money, items, etc).
Of course, there's a layer of player buy in. We try to keep the game moving.

>>95961211
I'm going to write this down. They have created a lot of loose ends, but their characters have usually ended up dead, arrested, or just retired before those ends could catch up to them.

They have, in a way, developed such a reputation with one NPC but that situation is a bit more complicated.

>>95961321
Sure, for the sake of brevity there's a lot of details I'll have to skip - one thing to note is that they change characters A LOT usually because they get bored, die to avoidable threats, or get arrested after publicly committing a crime. Any point of interest the previous characters discover remains permanently marked on the map for future characters. Here's a few that I've given and their reactions to them:

>Gold dragon in the mountains. As a different party, they had encountered this dragon before. They were not playing good-aligned characters, so killing it for treasure and glory was permissible, and they knew where the lair was. They chose to ignore it until some NPCs caught wind and dealt with it, where they lamented they could no longer get the treasure.

>City of Nefthol. A city in which it's Lord had been effectively removed from power, although he still held his title and office. He was unable to enforce any laws or rules, as the city guards were an outsourced mercenary company hired by his father. Every business in the city save for a few ran by non-humans was purchased by the merchant's guild, to the point there's only one "brand" of tavern in the whole city. Lastly, the non-humans confined to live in the slums have formed a pseudo-black panther party for their own protection. At first, the PCs ignored this, but last session (our second after our 1.5 year break) they decided to address it.

I had 2 more stand-out examples, but I'll have to fill them in another post for you. Open to criticism, of course.

>>95964646
>>95961321
>Luthon's Sorceress. A sorceress in Luthon killed 3 guards - deduced by a Talking Corpse spell. For a brief while, she stayed in a large tavern outside the city. One PC, while separated from the party, found her in this tavern and deduced it was her (can't remember how). She explained the guards tried to rape her, and there was a demon in the city she wanted to deal with before the incident, but she couldn't as she had to flee. The PC relayed this information to the rest of the group without mentioning the sorceress, and they actually found the demon and slew it. The lone PC returned to the sorceress and got paid, and the sorceress fled once again. This one was actually completed IMO, but that same player constantly complains that he regrets not turning her in and regards it as a failure.

>Lord Chandler. The Lord of a city that exiled all non-humans as soon as he took power. He used to have his doors wide open to adventurers and was willing to give them quests easily - but they would often neglect to tell Me they wanted to work for him in the week prior, and then approach him on game day for something I hadn't prepared. He would tell them to return later, I'd prepare something for next week (which I'd tell them of), and then they'd avoid him. They did this so often with so many different characters that I had him stop accepting adventurers like he had before, since from his perspective he was getting people constantly offering help and then randomly disappearing. They could still pursue quests with him, but he wants proof of merit first - they must complete any other quest and have proof of their actions before he'll assign them something.

As for our starting situation, honestly they used to switch characters with such frequency that I usually didn't bother creating any. However, most recently after our 1.5 year break, I had them as prisoners on an Elven ship.

>>95964646
Are they tied into these scenarios at all, or are all their characters tabula rasa, and these are just things that they are hearing about in the tavern? Do the player characters have their own goals?

>>95964646
>>95964693
Until you answer >>95964703 I can't know for sure, but it seems like their characters are completely unmoored from the world. They don't have any reason to care about anything because their characters are ciphers. Also, it sounds like these scenarios might be a little static? Are factions moving things around in the background?

Why do you want to run an open world sandbox? It seems like this group would be a lot more suited to adventures of a smaller scope.

>>95961016 (OP)
>irreverent NPCs

Make them relevant, you're the GM lol

>>95964693
>>95961321
They were (accidentally) rescued by human attackers, who returned them to Bristol. In Bristol, it was noted that the city was a trading hub and had much more easy access to magic items and weapons than other cities in the country. They were also much more accepting of non-humans, often employing those with darkvision to work as night guards.

The dwarf PC, seeing the opportunity, talked to the guard captain who redirected him to see the night guard captain who would come out around sunset. He could talk to her and she would run him through the application process. The dwarf PC accepted.

So what did he do next? He didn't tell the rest of the party about his intentions, nor did he follow up on them. Sunset came, nighttime came, and all he did was go to sleep in a tavern and make plans to go to Nefthol with the others later. The time he was told about the night guard captain was about halfway through the session, and he spent the entire latter half pissing around in the city.

At least they went to Nefthol in our second game and made some inches of progress, but still. One of the players (My brother IRL) sat in dead silence for 20 minutes and shat bricks when I suggested he chime in and help the group figure out a course of action, since the dwarf was doing literally all of the leg work this time around. His freakout ended our session early and we still haven't scheduled the next one. I told him he's not welcome to play if he's not going to, y'know, play.

>>95961193
>system rewards doing nothing
shiggy diggy wtf

>>95961016 (OP)
Some players just don't want to deal with a sandbox; they want their hand held and their choices to be situation based. Just give them what they want and present a clear goal for them to try and achieve, since they very clearly don't want to make their own story. Pure sandbox gameplay only really works in systems with Gold as XP reward systems since they don't need to justify why they are adventuring, they do it for the sake of getting treasure.

Make a bad guy, make every person they meet say something horrible about the bad guy, have the bad guy destroy a town they are heading towards and make the last dying peasant there beg the party to rescue his family from the bad guys slave camp that's half a days journey away.

>>95964746
So, one thing I can say for certain is that you are starting too early. It sounds like you are keeping the fun part of the game behind a bunch of stuff that is less interesting. Your starting situation shouldn't be "you guys could begin the application process to become night guards!" Your starting scenario should be "your PCs, brand new night's watch in the city, stand in the gloom of the under city, in front of the mysterious door they've followed the would be assassin too."

You need to start in media res, have a fun, punchy scenario that starts the game, and have plenty of exits from that scenario that point towards other things for them to check out in the world. "There's a dragon in the mountains," or "this thing happened with a sorcerer in ane nearby castle" aren't interesting if they are just contextless rumors they've heard about in the tavern.

>>95961404
>For example, a small 10x18 hexcrawl focused around solving a specific quest, with all locations on the map having minor side content, clues, or major quest content.
Funny you say that, that's exactly what I do. I give them a map of the province (though they have access to the whole country map too) and that map includes points of interest - labelled with ??? for anything undiscovered and a fitting name given to any discovered location. Once they discover a place, it remains permanently marked as such for any future characters to visit. Their characters don't need a reason other than "let's go exploring" to find these places.

Among noteworthy things they've discovered include an underwater dungeon (which one PC, separate from the group, swam down to, got attacked, and died and drowned), a dungeon full of kobolds (they have visited twice and retreated both times, not from getting low on HP or resources or anything but because they were asked to leave by the kobolds), a castle infested with demons (they have tried and failed 3 times to deal with this one), flowers that directly transport you to the feywild/first world if eaten (going back the same way). They typically interact with the things they discover once and never again - most marked points of interest were discovered and then never touched later after being lightly poked with a stick.

>bulletpoints
1. I've done the first part - I almost always make side quests that can be done in 1 session or less. There was one they took that honestly could've been half a session, which they stretched out to 3 and didn't even complete by the end of it. That's it's own wild story.

2. I should implement this, but I'm a little lost on what kind of "major plot" I can even implement with PCs who piss around this much. From experience, telling them "there is a dragon in the mountains and others will kill it soon if you don't" hasn't worked.

3. Good one, and I've noticed this a lot too actually.

>>95964823
>They typically interact with the things they discover once and never again - most marked points of interest were discovered and then never touched later after being lightly poked with a stick.
Do they have a reason to? All of your examples make them sound incredibly dangerous. Do they have any actual reason to want to check this stuff out?
>. I should implement this, but I'm a little lost on what kind of "major plot" I can even implement with PCs who piss around this much. From experience, telling them "there is a dragon in the mountains and others will kill it soon if you don't" hasn't worked.
Do they actually have a reason to kill the dragon other than "it has loot?"

>>95961472
I am tempted to do so once in a while, but I hate GMing that way because it's not fun for Me.

Granted, this isn't fun for Me either, so I don't know what the perfect middle ground is.

>>95962204
Yeah, that's why I'm thinking to introduce some kind of "DO THIS OR DIE" type of issue.

>>95962216
Believe it or not, tried this. Not sure if it's working though - I've noticed some improvement in the last session I'll admit, but I don't know if the momentum will keep up.

>>95962871
>You didn't give them a sense of urgency
That's what I'm thinking as well, yeah.

>Every so often, that token gets advanced. Especially when they fuck off for a session. I got a timeline for the major event broken down into segments that match those numbered points and the world state will reflect those changes. I had the players ignore it once and the kingdom they were fucking about in got overrun by demons, razed to the ground, their characters killed and shoved into hell, and any future games featured a nuked spot where that area used to be and it's a source of demonic incursions that hasn't been closed off yet.
HOLY SHIT trying this lmao thank you Anon

>>95963156
>Why shouldn't they faff around?
Because we play Pathfinder, a system which isn't designed for this. If they wanted to piss around like this, we could be playing Tabletop Tavern Simulator or the MLP system, but we're not and I don't want to run those games.

>What do YOU fantasise about?
Badass heroes, knights, wizards, and soldiers of all kinds facing impossible odds and overcoming them for riches and glory. Standard fantasy fair.

>>95963541
Gonna try the doom thing, yeah. Although I've given hooks, a lot of you are right that I've failed to attach a sense of urgency to them.

>>95964703
>>95964703
>Do the player characters have their own goals?
Yes, actually the dwarf realized that since his backstory relates to him wanting to depose a Count, it would be beneficial if he helped the Lord in Nefthol regain his power so he may potentially be given noble privileges and could thus fund some sort of sabotage against said Count.

That's only applicable to the dwarf though. Admittedly, one player is new enough that I didn't have him worry about a backstory, and the other PCs backstory takes place entirely in a foreign country - which in hindsight I probably should've told him to change since it's unlikely the PCs will be going there anytime soon. Despite that backstory, he told Me his character doesn't really have a goal beyond "survive and help others to" anyway.

>Are factions moving things around in the background?
Yes, but admittedly, not on a very substantial scale (yet). I'll change that.

>Why do you want to run an open world sandbox?
I have no fun running a railroaded game, and a linear game is only half as enjoyable for Me as open world. I like a game where the PCs have to come up with fun, creative, interesting ideas that keep things moving. I want them to make characters with their own goals that they pursue relentlessly until they succeed or die trying. I don't want them to simply sit as witnesses to a story I wrote - I want them to be making that story and we all get to watch in surprise as it forms and unfolds before us.

>>95964723
All the relevant NPCs I make are usually too busy with something of significance to be able to piss around in a tavern like the PCs do.

>>95964781
Might try this.

>>95964797
>Your starting situation shouldn't be "you guys could begin the application process to become night guards!"
No no, you misunderstood Me. I never suggested the PCs join the guards at all - I'm very against the idea because the PCs are supposed to be adventurers. That was an idea the dwarf came up with on his own after hearing about the night guards (I always include some general information in My city descriptions - one of which happened to be that nonhumans with darkvision serve as night guards), then he went and asked the guard captain about it, who deferred him to the night guard captain and he never followed up with that.

>Your starting scenario should be "your PCs, brand new night's watch in the city, stand in the gloom of the under city, in front of the mysterious door they've followed the would be assassin too."
In the scenario that I wanted them to be guards, this is probably what I would do.

>You need to start in media res, have a fun, punchy scenario that starts the game
That's what I tried with them being prisoners aboard an Elven ship. I've planned for that to catch up with them eventually, but I guess I need stuff to fill in the meantime.

>>95964853
>Do they have a reason to?
In some cases yes, in some cases no. There are a couple points which are honestly just a "see it once and it doesn't matter after", but then there's others like the kobold cave which is full of gods-only-know how much treasure and has big bright neon signs outside the door saying "HERE BE TREASURE" and big red arrows.

I've scaled everything in that region to be an appropriate challenge level for the PCs. The only thing they'd need for the underwater dungeon are potions of water breathing - which they know are sold by an alchemist in one of the cities. The kobold dungeon is, like any, filled with traps and kobolds, but nothing so harmful that they couldn't beat it. Level 1 PF2e characters are a much higher weight class than Level 1 5e characters. 1/2

>>95964853
>>95965004
The demon castle is probably the hardest/most dangerous thing in the area for them to deal with, but they know exactly who and what is in there and they've whittled down the numbers by a huge margin (before, most of them were just low AC low HP filler grunts, now they only have a couple hard hitters remaining). With that said, it is doable for them even at level 1. Their main problem with the castle has been that when they go there, they fight for a bit then have a complete breakdown in communication and start operating on "every man for himself" instead of "we can work together to overcome this". Last time they went, the fighter and barbarian were knocked down and the bard refused to heal them because he wanted to save his spell slots for his offensive abilities. Naturally, he was blasted by the demons and they wiped out.

>Do they have any actual reason to want to check this stuff out?
Gold and glory. My dwarf PC commented last session that he knew there was no effective low-risk way to make a lot of money in the campaign I run - thus he would have to do something dangerous if he wanted to make a bag. He's right. Even with the downtime options you can't earn that much in Pathfinder without actually adventuring.

>Do they actually have a reason to kill the dragon other than "it has loot?"
Yes and no - they knew a Lord was wanting to get rid of it because he feared that it may regard humans as tyrannical and try to take over the kingdom. If they offered to help (which to their credit they did - before leaving to piss around in the forest), it stood to reason they would have a share of the dragon's hoard in addition to whatever the Lord would pay. They went and offered their service, and he told them to return later when the plans were more formalized, but they never did.

This also would've secured the Lord's trust in them, which could've been invaluable for all kinds of story shenanigans.

>>95965004
You're getting too tied to the specific example I gave, my dude. The point isn't "funnel them into becoming guards immediately," the point is "start them at the beginning of the interesting part of a scenario." Don't start them in the tavern talking to an old man to get a map to the dungeon, start them at the entrance of the dungeon, and say "following the map you got from the old man in the tavern, you find yourselves at the mouth of the spooky cave."

Start them at the latest possible point you can start them. They are already doing a thing. It doesn't matter what the starting situation is, if it's a dungeon, a heist, a ball, whatever, just have their characters already having decided to do a thing. Then, whatever that scenario is, it should have big, neon signs pointing to other things of interest in the setting, be it factions, places, people, treasure, ongoing plots, what have you. They need some starting momentum to get going. They also don't need back stories but they should have some kind of goal driving them forward that you can tie clues into. It doesn't need to be elaborate, something like I'm here to get revenge, I'm here to find my sister, I'm hear because I heard about the demons treasure hoard. It needs to be something, some reason why they are in your sandbox.

>>95965079
>Yes and no - they knew a Lord was wanting to get rid of it because he feared that it may regard humans as tyrannical and try to take over the kingdom. If they offered to help (which to their credit they did - before leaving to piss around in the forest), it stood to reason they would have a share of the dragon's hoard in addition to whatever the Lord would pay. They went and offered their service, and he told them to return later when the plans were more formalized, but they never did.
>This also would've secured the Lord's trust in them, which could've been invaluable for all kinds of story shenanigans
You're thinking like 3 steps too far ahead. They don't know that securing the lords trust will lead to all kinds of fun story shenanigans. You're placing things in your world that *you* know will lead to cool stuff, but it doesn't sound like you're really showing the players that very well.

>>95965004
>That's what I tried with them being prisoners aboard an Elven ship. I've planned for that to catch up with them eventually, but I guess I need stuff to fill in the meantime

What other points of interest did your elven prison ship escape point to?

>>95961016 (OP)
Before the game starts, when they're making characters and such, ask them to write a few short-term goals and a few long-term goals. It helps you knowing what they want to do, and it helps THEM knowing what they want to do too.
At this point, the best thing is probably to just ask them if they're having fun doing nothing at all.

>>95965294
As in, did it directly lead to anything specific? No, but it dropped them into the region with a bunch of other stuff for them to do and from our conversations before the game they said they just wanted something quick to get them together. A main quest they're pushed into right off the cuff would've violated the sandbox.

>>95966075
I've got the dwarf player's goals, I'm gonna ask the rest - especially the one guy who doesn't have any.

>>95961016 (OP)
If you're trying to lead them, you might be looking at it from the wrong direction. Ask them what they want to do at the end of the session, collect what they want to do and prep from there.
Also what >>95966075 said. Goals are important for player motivation, whether it's for themselves or for the party as a whole.
Good luck anon

>>95967427
I'm not talking about a main quest they are shoved into. I'm talking about an engaging starting scenario that feeds them hints or clues or however the fuck you want to think of them into other points of interest in your world. You might just be bad at describing it, but from the way it sounds, your world sounds static, and your PCs have zero reason to DO anything. If you just plop them down on a map and go "okay, figure it out," you're starting with zero momentum. Start them actually DOING something, and have the wrap up of that something lead to other things.

I feel like you're getting caught up in examples and not really paying attention to the advice that is being given.

>Everyone is giving well thought out replies
>OP is taking the responses to heart and is giving well thought out responses
am I on bizarro-/tg/?

>>95967571
>>95967427
On top of that, analysis paralysis is a thing. If they are just being given 10 random things they could do with no reason and no difference between them but window dressing, they are going to just spin their wheels.

>>95967571
I'll give you an example. Don't get caught up in the particulars, think about the structure:
The players start outside the bandit hideout. They have already agreed to get the macguffin back for the old man in the tavern, who also told them this is the perfect time to rob the hideout because the main force is away. While they are in the hideout, they find out the bandits have been working with a cult in a nearby town. They also find the last surviving member of another adventuring party who wants help to escape in exchange, he'll let the party in on the last job they were on. Finally, the party find some good obviously belonging to a nearby knightly order. They could sell them, but they also know the knightly order would like to get this stuff back and might hook them up.

So, now you have a good, simple but action packed first session, and you have three outs to different points on your map (the town with the cult, the treasure stash of the surviving adventurer, and the knightly order.) Each of those places, in turn, could have outs that point to each other, and OTHER places on the map. And, they also have the job they already took before the game started to go turn in, and maybe that old man can be a patron to them as well. But the point is you don't start them in a tavern looking for a job. They are already *on* the job, and that job leads to more jobs.

>>95961016 (OP)
A real sandbox isn't the same as a normal ttrpg. If you try to run it as one, this'll be the result. It's more like a board game. Also it sucks and no one who pretends to actually wants one.

>>95967876
sandbox is the only pure RPG

>>95961016 (OP)
The best beginning to a sandbox campaign is forcing the party to do something, even if it is just a basic 'clear the cave of shitter monsters' quest. You can introduce elements to pursue in the cave, in the preamble to the quest, in the journey back to acquire rewards, or in the rewards received from completion. A starting structure serves as a trellis to grow your campaign along, even if it ends up overgrowing the roof or a big mess on the ground.

As far as salvaging the campaign, absolutely agree with the villain idea. Don't worry about needing to slight someone; villains are often instigators, and maybe the party just happened to be the right size and shape for some alchemical experiments. Or he's a slaver and they sufficiently fit the bill for a premium product. Or he's just a violent asshole looking to blow off steam by beating the stuffing out of some hapless adventurers.

>>95961016 (OP)
I think you have to make things happen with or without their input in the background. Wars, noble clashes, etc.

If they don't do anything their situation will suffer. If they do, it gets better. Meet them where they are and expand outward.

Kind of a lame example: If the house of unsympathetic wins over the house of niceguys, the cities they travel within will become noticeably more oppressive. This can either force them to act based on securing future, or force them to act within the things they are already doing.

They can side with either for about the same result: better travel. House unsympathetic will stop bothering you if them work for them. Niceguys won't bother you either way, but they're losing right now and will dislike them if they take the other side. Both will give quests.

>>95965272
Good point. Honestly, there were several times in the past I could've started with "you're right at the dungeon", but I often didn't bother with intro scenes because the PCs replaced themselves so frequently it would've been an unreasonable hassle.

I'm not even joking, each player had a new character every 2-4 sessions, either because they simply wanted to play something new, because they died splitting off and doing something stupid, or because they were arrested after blatantly committing a crime in broad daylight (or confessing about a past crime to a few strangers). And usually it was only 1 PC at a time doing this, so there were 2 players who were witness to all of the last 2 sessions and then this 1 random new guy, and then next session 1 of those initial 2 gets replaced, so on. I don't know how they kept track of it all because I barely could.

If they happen to squad wipe again, I'll be sure to drop them right at Mount Evil.

>>95965283
>They don't know that securing the lords trust will lead to all kinds of fun story shenanigans
I'd agree this is probably fair under most cases, but in this specific case, they did. I told them (and one of the players constantly reminded them although he didn't do much to follow up) that pursuing something with this Lord would lead to a grander, "main quest" style string of events.

>>95967530
>Ask them what they want to do at the end of the session, collect what they want to do and prep from there
THIS is exactly how I like/prefer to DM. My biggest problem is that up until recently after our break, My players just refused to do this. Even now after our hiatus I've sent multiple messages to say "Hey guys let Me know what you wanna get done" but the only one who's honestly been engaging lately is the dwarf - for which he has My respect, especially considering he used to feed the problem.

>Good luck anon
Thank you O7

>>95967571
I see what you're saying, this is a pretty good suggestion I'll keep in mind.

>>95964901
>Gonna try the doom thing, yeah. Although I've given hooks, a lot of you are right that I've failed to attach a sense of urgency to them.
I didn't read the rest of the thread, so this might be redundant.
But one thing our DM does is, sometimes we have thing A, B, and C to do.
We do thing C then we get word that thing A has changed in some way, sometimes even to the point of being inaccessible.
It's never game-y. It all works perfectly well inside the fiction, but we are always cognizant that even if there isn't a explicit time pressure (oh noe, things will go to shit in a month!), we know that there is a chance known situations might change due to knowns and unknowns as the world state moves forward, which puts some implicit pressure on us to consider things well and always keep moving.
Do note that moments of respite are also needed, otherwise it can get real tiring. We got to that point once so far.

>>95967999
Another way to do a villain is to ask the players, "okay, the reason you are all together is a mutual hatred of one person. Who is this person, and why can't you get at them right now?" Then you have a villain who can move in the background and fuck with them occasionally, and they have provided the reason why their characters are together and why they need dosh/magic items/big swords/buff friends to fuck this person up.

I'm a big fan of "I'm not going to motivate your character, I want you to tell me why your character is motivated, and if they aren't, retire them and make a character who is."

>>95967589
The world is healing :DDDD

>>95967591
>>95967650
Might be wrong but I'm assuming this is the same person so that's why I'm replying like this.

Something funny, I did actually do this once. I started them at the mouth of a dungeon - inside which was a prisoner who asked for their help. Specifically, a friend of hers was kidnapped in another city quite far to the east from where they were, she wanted to rescue him and knew that an emissary of the group responsible was going to be in another eastern but slightly closer city.

The PCs agreed to help. However, they completely separated themselves from the woman and found the kidnapper guy on their own. At first he was with some allies and they had their asses kicked (but lived). The second time they were luckier and strategized better, leading to a victory.

They tied up the emissary in an abandoned shack and questioned him. He denied all involvement, they didn't bother to confirm this, and they didn't have a spellcaster for something like Zone of Truth. So, they believed him and let him go, but shot him in the back as he walked away to kill him off for good.

When they went back to the woman and explained what happened (after she hadn't seen them for 5 days), she was pissed they ruined her chances to get her friend back and told them to fuck off.

But I would agree, this is a solid way to build points to jump off from. I could've done better with that Elven ship.

>>95967876
I have to disagree because I have run sandboxes before for this same group that went just fine, but it was mostly one player who carried for them. It was somewhat similar to old-style D&D, sessions usually consisted of them waking up in their house, the one player saying he wanted to go out and explore and adventure, followed by him going out and engaging with whatever he came across which usually took up the rest of the session. Rinse and repeat. It was fun.

>>95967999
>Or he's just a violent asshole looking to blow off steam by beating the stuffing out of some hapless adventurers.
This might be the easiest to pull off, considering the city they're in is full of corrupt guards led by an equally corrupt Giant Douche.

>>95968002
I've somewhat implemented this, but I think I should go bigger with it.

In the city they're in right now they are somewhat having to deal with the consequences of their previous actions as another party. Someone in this city asked them to kill a tax collector in a neighbouring city, and they failed to do so but they did inform the tax collector who they'd been hired by and for what purpose.

Off screen, the tax collector went knocking on this man's door demanding answers, which led to them dueling and the tax collector losing. However, this tax collector was the Count's designated tax collector for the province, so the Count was pissed to learn he'd been murdered.

The man who wanted the tax collector gone was able to cover up his crime to the extent he wouldn't be implicated, but it was impossible to avoid discovery of what happened.

As a result, the Count sent some of his own elite guard to the city which was already in shambles due to the Lord having no power and the governance split between a few different factions, and the elite guard set some new rules into place that complicate the PCs mission until the murderer is found.

The best part IMO is that out of character, the PCs know exactly who did it, and they know why he's almost untouchable in this regard.

>>95968104
I do this, I like how you worded it though. Problem: They look at thing C but don't actually do it, so much time passes that thing B changes, and they ignore thing A altogether.

>>95968157
Haha that'd be a good one.

>>95961016 (OP)
Have you tried making the irrelevant NPCs that they talk to , yknow , relevant !

Or just have some villain piss on their boots Ezpz

>>95968415
>Something funny, I did actually do this once. I started them at the mouth of a dungeon - inside which was a prisoner who asked for their help. Specifically, a friend of hers was kidnapped in another city quite far to the east from where they were, she wanted to rescue him and knew that an emissary of the group responsible was going to be in another eastern but slightly closer city.

I mean, this is close, but not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a dungeon/location/encounter having multiple, other hooks to other dungeons/locations/encounters that may or may not have a direct connection to the place you currently are. It makes it feel like the various people and places in your world are interacting instead of everything being just a static waypoint on a map. Was the trapped women the point of this dungeon? Also, a prime example, even though they tracked down and killed the kidnapper, that is still prime time to provide MORE leads. So the kidnapper has a note from the local thieves guild or a client list or key with runes on it that one of the players remembers or something. Any node should be pointing to other nodes, especially in the beginning.

>>95964901
>Believe it or not, tried this
I don't. Or rather I can believe you tried, but it sounds like you fucked it up because you don't seem to have learned anything from the attempt. "I've noticed some improvement" suggests you were lecturing them on how to Do Better rather than trying to understand what they wanted from the game and how they expected the way they were playing to achieve that.
At the moment it sounds like they mostly doing give a fuck and are showing up more out of habit. Like they're going through the motions doing "RPG stuff" because that's what you do in RPGs, with no real engagement.

i love how in modern rpg circles it's the GM's fault his players are trash.
>If you were like the best open world sandbox GM in existence then for sure the game would be better and your players would instantly upgrade from a trashheap to decent players.
Let's be fucking honest. The OP doesn't sound like he is the best at it but i could see even mediocre at best rpg players having a lot of fun with his setting and engaging with it if they just bothered to do shit that wasn't inane, retarded, mindless.
The usual problem with players is that they have a strong character concept and things their character would prefer to do and not just hop on the railroad. Even if you are inexperienced at playing a sandbox you must be total trash to act like the OPs players and i would kick them or kill the game even if they were my friends after a few sessions in his place.
>>95961016 (OP)
Tldr. good job for keeping to try OP. You have my heartfelt respect. I hope the advice you got helps you improve the game a little at least for your own enjoyment

>>95969054
Ahh, I see. I definitely misunderstood earlier. As I'm thinking about it, I don't think I've put in something that "full" yet.

>>95971316
>trying to understand what they wanted from the game
I think that's where we're running into a huge problem too. They say they want a sandbox, and I prefer to run a sandbox-style game, but their actions don't reflect this y'know?

I've made My expectations of what I want clear and they've told Me what theirs are as well, but they have insisted on the open world style and not being railroaded or pushed too hard in one direction. I've told them that to have this kind of game, I'll provide a bunch of different things for them to do, but the responsibility falls on them to pick a direction. As I mentioned, they finally landed on something last session after our long break, but it's taken an absurdly long time to get here and I'm worried old habits will come up again.

So I'm confused, dude. They're saying they want the candies being offered but their actions make it look like they wanted pastries instead.

>>95971526
I don't know, I don't get it. There's a guy in our group who used to GM once in a while. His life is in a weird place so he's pretty on and off with us, last time he GMed for us was in 2022.

Like Me, he prefers to run open-world style sandbox games, but as a player in that type of game I know I have to tell him what I want to do with My character long-term and short term so he knows what to prepare for the next session. Some credit where it's due, the guy usually made like a page worth of prepared notes and improvised the entire rest of the thing, and he was very good at it. But still, nothing My character wanted to do could be done if I didn't give him notice.

I think there's also an unspoken agreement that in such a game, the GM is going to give you certain things to bite at and things to do relating to your character and their goals - the responsibility is on you as a player to seize those opportunities. There's only so much pushing and coercing GM can do while you're blatantly ignoring what's right in front of you.

But with all that said, I can push and coerce just a bit harder and see where that lands Me, so that's what I'm gonna try.

>Tldr.
Haha thank you. Some of this advice has been very useful, I will say.

>>95971526
His players aren't here asking for advice, he is, and telling him "your players fucking suck, get new players" probably isn't helpful advice. We've got to go on what we know from what he's telling us, and advise him to fix the things he can.

Whole bunch of railroading failed novelists in this thread.

>>95974577
>Never gamed

>>95968501
>The best part IMO is that out of character, the PCs know exactly who did it, and they know why he's almost untouchable in this regard.
That is a good one, that'd intrigue me as a player personally.

I do think there has to be a progression element to it, though. I've had to deal with players like yours before in a sandbox style game and my experience has been that they shouldn't be able to simply adapt.

The world is moving even if they aren't. Not as a punishment, just a natural consequence of an exciting world.

Could you make the investigation into the tax collector point toward the party at all? Not necessarily as a done deal, but have everyone be suspicious as some evidence comes out?

Either they can find some way to actually uncover evidence of the truly responsible party or need to get out of the city as the walls close in. Or have to make a prison break, I guess.

>>95971599
Why are you capitalizing 'Me' and 'My'?

>>95961016 (OP)
You have failed at one of the most fundamental requirements of running a game. Asking your players what they want out of a game and what keeps their interest. If I've been playing with a group long enough I generally know what each person likes but if I'm unfamiliar when I run session zero one of the first things I do is ask each person those questions. Even if they've never played a TTRPG before you can ask tangentially related questions; what movies, written works etc are they keen on? What sort of stuff do they look forward to watching/reading/engaging with?

Once you have the individual players' list of desirable things you then ask all the players as a group whether they had decided what sort of game they want to be a part of. I wouldn't sit down at the table and tell all my players that I'm running an extremely narrative heavy politically motivated game without finding out if they're even going to give a shit.

If you put your players into a sandbox game and you don't know what the fuck they care about how can you possibly expect to figure out ways to make them engage with the world you've shanghai'd them into?

TL;DR talk to your players and find out what they like. Maybe ask if there's a reason they're so averse to engaging with the world beyond you failing to present them with things they personally find interesting.

If your players still persist despite the above then you're SOL. Tag out and have someone else run some games for a bit or consider just not running sandbox games and instead give them structured campaigns.

>>95961016 (OP)
>What do you do if your players won't do shit in a sandbox game? Presume you've given them several opportunities and several hooks and multiple options to bite at - even random miscellaneous things in the wilderness to do and explore like a videogame.
Obviously they don't want to play that kind of game (regardless what they say). Plop them down outside the Tomb of Horrors and say "this is what we're doing". If they're zero attention-span zoomers, ask them "do you boot up Baldur's Gate 3 and then stare blankly at the screen asking 'I wanted to play Doom', where are the guns?"

>>95964966
>I like a game where the PCs have to come up with fun, creative, interesting ideas that keep things moving.
It may be too late for this game, idk, but one thing that might help is to - before character creation finishes - have the players list out (say) three meaningful, specific goals their characters have. It doesn't have to be a "personal plot" type of deal (e.g. avenge my dead father); it can be stuff like, "get a bunch of cool magic items" or "kill a dragon." But just making them actually think, and write down, what sorts of things their characters will be doing other than faffing about, is good.

>>95961016 (OP)
play with different people, obviously.

>>95975224
>Could you make the investigation into the tax collector point toward the party at all? Not necessarily as a done deal, but have everyone be suspicious as some evidence comes out?
I somewhat planned to do this. There is a dwarf in the party and, since they're easy targets in this setting, I decided the murderer would pin the blame on a non-human. However, that particular non-human has yet to be found, and non-humans in general have been under extra scrutiny for the past couple months.

>>95975258
My key is broken.

>>95975525
That's kinda part of the problem Anon: I have asked what they wanted, and they have answered, but their actions betray those answers.

>>95976317
>If they're zero attention-span zoomers, ask them "do you boot up Baldur's Gate 3 and then stare blankly at the screen asking 'I wanted to play Doom', where are the guns?"
kek

>>95976654
We have similar practices in place - but what they say and what they end up doing are usually 2 very different things.

>>95977476
But these are My frens :(

>>95980248
>That's kinda part of the problem Anon: I have asked what they wanted, and they have answered, but their actions betray those answers.

Then see the last part of my answer. Run campaigns instead. Your players won't engage with sandboxes in a constructive fashion.

>>95980582
To back up this anon, I feel like more and more there is a weird false dichotomy being perpetuated where you're either running a completely open sandbox game, or you're running running the narrowest of railroads. That's bullshit. You can run a more focused game that is still mostly unplanned and reactive to the players actions. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It seems bizarre that OP is so into a structure that doesn't seem to be working for anyone.

>>95971557
>I've made My expectations of what I want clear and they've told Me what theirs are as well
I don't think has actually worked. At the very least it sounds like all of you have been sitting around for weeks or months playing a game that none of you are actually enjoying all that much. None of you are communicating effectively.
It's possible they like the sound of a sandbox game but don't actually enjoy playing it, but it sounds to me more like they're just having trouble getting engaged with it. That might be because your world and adventure hooks don't appeal to them, or because their characters and party don't have clear personalities and goals.
This needs to be a conversation where you try to understand the problem rather than just clarify your expectations or accuse them of not trying hard enough, or whatever.

>>95980718
Far more games are in-between, just from personal experiences. A lot of sandbox games will still have a general premise setup instead of having the player characters seemingly will themselves into existence, and also have events unfold outside of the pcs' control as a result of their actions. And most games with a focused story still leave plenty of room for the players to try whatever they can within reason, especially in shit like down time or the usual shopping trips (or as I call them the upgrade hustle).