TheSagaContinues

The reason I ask is because I’m used to playing the regular (non-sandbox) style. I was a player in a sandbox style with D&D 3.5 once. I was completely lost. I had no idea where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do. I wasn’t used to this lack of direction. The GM didn’t have a lot of experience, and this was the first time she was trying a sandbox style. Her previous GM’ing was almost always regular-style.
 
What do you do when a player feels lost and doesn’t know what he should be doing?

Introduce a backstory character who needs help, have the hero stumble upon a conspiracy, or something similar.  There needs to be some sort of motivation.  Without motivation from the GM or the players, a sandbox can stagnate, probably faster than a standard campaign. 


My first time GMing a sandbox was in Pathfinder.  I had a whole evil organization that spanned the world that they were going to fight, but that never got off the ground.  We spent the first few levels having them doing some minor adventures.  They got bored and weren't sure what to do, so I askde them what were some things they would like to do.  One of them mentioned that lots of GMs have players write their backstory but then never do anything with it.  Then they decided to have each player fulfill his backstory and life ambitions.  It turned out well, took them all the way to level 16.


Be prepared to follow the heroes wherever they want to go.


A friend of mine once ran a sandbox Fringe-turning-Rebels campaign, but the heroes decided to kill a crime lord and take over his organization instead.  Never joined the Rebellion, and ended up in a turf war with both the Tenloss Syndicate and Black Sun.

The old "horrible experiments done in the dark" cliche works pretty well.

My brother suggested this as well, and I like it.  Works well with the secret super-soldier project.

OR a variation of that: since Nubia has those pumps to bring water to the surface, perhaps the Imperials were experimenting with water-borne bioweapons by contaminating the water pumps and/or subterranean water supplies of remote settlements.

Perfect!

Missions:

Since they're setting up a cell network, they need to get recruits, which will only happen if the Empire starts to look bad.
-She could have the heroes sabotage the water pumps servicing some of the main cities. Not much, just enough them non-functional for a few days. Water riots occur and Imperial rule is undermined.
-If the heroes are kinda despicable, false flag operations. Have the heroes steal some stormtrooper armor and murder civilians in broad daylight.
-Frame the Governor (and preferably, a whole lot of other high-ranking officials) for something bad that happened.

Good ideas.  The heroes are definitely light-side, so the second might not work as written, but a variation could.

Be careful. Framing the Empire could backfire in many ways. The people could find out the truth, which would be a major problem. But more importantly, the Empire would not take kindly to being framed for brutality, and would likely respond by hunting down the PC's and showing them what real Imperial brutality is.

Be careful. Framing the Empire could backfire in many ways. The people could find out the truth, which would be a major problem. But more importantly, the Empire would not take kindly to being framed for brutality, and would likely respond by hunting down the PC's and showing them what real Imperial brutality is.

Which could be filmed. *wink*

I'm actually more accustomed to sandbox. never finished one box set, as a player or narrator. my old group tended to come up with crazy ideas that are so far out, there's no way for the opposition to counter, if they didn't decide to go off and do their own thing. so I stopped planning stories and started creating cast and trigger events(if the go this way, this happens, if they do that, another thing happens) I guess you could also call them trigger scenes. It works for some groups.

And I honestly thought it would work with this group.  They're normally so imaginative, I was sure they would just need basic ideas and then they'd put into action some plan.

for others, they prefer a "story starts here" and goes in a predetermined sequence of events, which works pretty well to, if the group likes that.

So I sat down last session with my group, and this is kind of what they asked for.  They really asked for more solid adventures hooks (which I thought I had provided, but apparently not).  So now I've got three adventures hooks ready for them:


1.  The Rebel High Command needs food, and they've asked the heroes to capture a food barge and redirect to a friendly location.


2.  They've been working on a vigilante campaign against a local crime syndicate.  Previously, the crime lord tried to shake them down, but they refused to be intimidated.  So when the enforcer squad turns up to collect, if the heroes refuse, they'll warn the heroes that there will be trouble, then they'll meander down and hassle the heroes' next door neighbor (and hopefully the heroes will intervene).


3.  Taking CHIA's idea, the Vice President of Nubia will hear from a contact that some of the outlying province populations are falling ill and that medical supplies are needed.

when I build characters I may leave feats/talent/skill undefined which will let me fill them in on the fly to give them what they may need to counter/challenge the PCs.

I like this idea for non-static NPCs.


@Sienn remember the rebels are always hurting for resources, so making nice, saving others and doing favors to/for merchants and nobles would go along way to help their cause, as would doing things for the general populace (getting medicine for those that can't get it themselves, or even just feeding someone and giving them a clean warm blanket) one noble house that is noted in the book Galaxy of intrigue is House Korden for encouraging the independent spirit and caring about the commoners, i'm sure they are involved in a lot of things and would be a good (unnamed) backer if the PCs gained their attention. it doesn't hurt to be nice, might even save the PCs life, and they can always go back, kill NPC and retrieve the blanket

Hey Sienn, how about throwing your players some moral dilemmas? For example, the food barge they are capturing and redirecting is actually going to a place where the civilians are starving.

Possibly useful for another time.  Right now, I need to give my players some focus on directly helping civilians, helping the Rebellion, or messing with the Empire.  Anything else will just make them more frustrated than they already are.

Alright, folks.  So I've been able to catch my heroes with a few good adventure hooks (took CHIA's idea for messing with the water supply and had some cliffborer worms make a nusiance of themselves by burrowing near the water main and in the process dislodging heavy metals and minerals in the water to make people sick, and the other had the heroes infiltrate a fuel station and blow it up to damage a Star Destroyer coming in for resupply), so I want to thank everyone for the other ideas they've added and that I plan to use later on.




Now I need some help with some other things.


3 of my 6 heroes have high Intelligences and are trained in Use Computer (with one having Skill Focus also, and another with Force Sensitivity/Technometry).  They often operate as an on-site hacker/slicer team to disrupt or alter Imperial computers and video cameras, as well as open electronic locks and doors.  This is not to say there are always successful (they failed to hack the Holonet, and the Sluissi almost had an Imp tech trace him while rummaging around in an Imperial database), but it is a tactic they resort to often (which they should, since they've specialized and it has worked before, besides the fact that it's Star Wars, with computers and tech all around them).


Besides the obvious 'put them in a situation where they can't use computers' idea, what other things can I do to challenge these computer geeks?