I am trying to write a story with definite quests and objectives, which have their own mini-arcs, but more or less the players are free to choose where their next adventure will come from. I was hoping that somebody else had done this (presumably better than my super rough draft is now) and could offer some pointers.
Basically I am placing the campaign in a city where most of the adventuring will take place. If they hear about a dungeon off in the distance so be it but the city will be at the very least a base of operations. I have a few primary storylines that have no definite timeline, and the players can pursue them at their own whim (and they intersect somewhat so that they can get hinted towards the other lines if they missed a clue or what not. Then I have a few generic quest hubs (bounties, law & order, thieves guild etc) should the players either reach a deadend or we don't have time to play main quest storylines.
I realize it might be a bit difficult since I am not really sure of what questions I should be asking for help. I guess if you have 2c to put in about why you would or wouldn't want to run/play this and why it would be appreciated
But as a player myself, and other players I have talked to that is not the game I want to play. I would much rather be restricted in my free traveling worldly abilities if that gave me focus on a story. As a player Archtype I am very much an Instigator/Storyteller. I RP heavily even when some members of my group do not. I often create a journal from my character's perspective about the ongoing story. And like I said as a player I would much rather play someone else's story even if it is a little railroaded rather than just jump around from one city to another getting in random encounter after failed adventure after another. So I suggest to you instead of trying to build an MMO video game world, make a story that you are proud of even if that hinders the freeform a little bit, but allow for creative thought in that world. Make one big story or even two and give the characters side quests that they can accomplish at anytime, just little like mercenary or bounty hunting jobs, that don't effect the story at all, but add some flavor in the campaign so they are not just stuck on the story line. But make it clear where the story is, how to get back to it, and where it's going. So it is not restricted in any way, but if you have players with similar attitudes to the one's I have encountered they will enjoy it a lot more than a true free form world.
If you want a good example of a true free form world. Just look at Eberron and Forgotten Realms. Those are two very free form worlds, but that is the amount of work it would take to make a true free form worlds. Forgotten Realms has a great over arcing story like the recent spell plague and what not, where characters can go in be a part of it and jump out. However that can also make a PC feel less important in the world over all knowing that any adventurer could come in and do pretty much what they did just as well. Making no real impact on the world.
That's just my opinion I hope it helps. :D
I think that I gave the wrong impression of my campaign though, I do not want it as free form as MMO's, which are about as sandboxy as a game can get without being a sandbox. If I had to pick a game that I want this campaign to be like, I would say morrowind, where every quest giver has a story to tell, and that there is a main story to be pursued at your own leisure. To continue on the morrowind analogy, though it doesn't fit quite right, would be that my other primary quest lines would be like the great houses of morrowind, and the secondary quest givers would be like the fighter's guild or the mage's guild.
The generic quests sole purpose would be as a plot device. They wouldn't necessarily be this obvious but suppose I wanted them to find a guy and they missed the subtle hint, I might hang a wanted poster of him. My ambition lies not in trying to recreate video games on the table but rather to recreate the dynamic of a changing, active city. I don't want one there to be a storyline that the players will follow or go dick around, I want everything to be important in its own way, and that through the course of the campaign, the players will shape the city and I have a lot more wiggle room to adapt the campaign as needed
And that's just one aspect you could make available the quest in another way at the same time. A subquest might be a woman is posting fliers and asking people around town if they have seen her husband who went missing a few days ago. Or a subquest of the same approach could be some of the local thieves guild is looking for a man who owes them money. A subsubquest might be that the woman went to the town guards who is trying to spread the word about it and tell the PCs about it, or they are in the local tavern and hear about a missing man and a man who owes the thieves guild for gambling debts or if the PCs are the gambling type the thieves guild will question the PCs about the man, if they have seen him and what not, while the PCs are gambling. The missing man of course could be the good dragon who was sacrificed who happened to live his life shape changed as a common human.
The adventures would just funnel and funnel and funnel until you got to the main plot line, and the PCs can solve it. That's what I would do. Just make a main central plot line. Write it down like a flow chart. This is just an example but you can add as many subsubsub quests as you want two or three is prolly enough that way they have a total of 4 chances to get to the sub quests and a total of 6 chances to get to the main story part. And if you add three subsub quests and three subsub quests that's a total of 12 chances to get to the main story and you could just spread those around the whole city. Come at it from different angles.
subsub a1 subsub a2 subsub b1 sub sub b2
\ / \ /
Subquest a Subquest b
\ /
\ /
Main Quest 1 ----------> Main Quest 2 ----> And so on.
/ \
/ \
Subquest a subquest b
/ \ / \
subsub a1 subsub a2 subsub b1 subsub b2
1) Set up an over-arching plot. Mine is orcus is escaping his prison.
2) Set up a re-accruing villain. Mine is a paladin of the raven queen who got trapped with orcus. Every time he's killed he goes back to orcus. He is allowed to truly die only after orcus is freed, he's torn between his duties to his god, and the torment of infinite deaths.
3) Set up a re-accuring ally. Mine is a group dedicated to hiding the location of the prison. The remains of the group that imprisoned him in the first place.
4) Put in a (unspecified, but not hurried) time limit. Mine is a continual weakening of orcus'es prison.
5) Link quests to overarching plot/re-accruing villain/re-accruing ally/time limit. One of my quests was repairing a hole in a wall where orcus's power was leeking out. Another will be chasing down and silencing some of orcus'es cults who found the location of the prison. Another will be the re-accuring villian just being a jerk to the group.
6) Some quest have nothing to do with the plot. Occasionally a prince(ess) just needs rescued, or a character background needs spot lighted.
Which means you need driven characters. If your players turn up at the table expecting to be spoon fed a story while they sit back and relax, the game is probably going to fail.
It is important that your players create well though out, strong (personality wise, not mechanicaly) characters with clearly defined personal goals. I should probably mention that these goals need to have atleast some overlap, otherwise they're just going to run off in separate directions.
As a player I enjoy free form/sandbox games because it's not just a story my character happens to be in, it's a story that is actually about my character (and the other characters, of course). This gives a lot of creative control to me as a player and I can affect the game in a very organic way to better suit what I want out of it.
As a DM I enjoy free form/sandbox games because I never know what to expect. This style gives the players a lot of creative control over what happens in the game, so instead of them just trudging through a story I have created earlier, the story is created at the table as we play.
DMing a freeform/sandbox game requires a bit of work, before the first session even begins you need to have a "world" set out for them, with tons of cool and interessting toys for them to play with. And then, as the game progresses, it's your task to maintain some cohesion between all the things the players are doing, to make sure it doesn't just feel like a bunch of random mini adventures.
One important thing to keep in mind is to never let the pace drop to low. The players need to have lots of stuff to do all the time, because if they don't they'll probably get bored and lose thier drive which could end the entier campaign prematurely.
With all this in mind, if you still want to run a free from game and think your players are up to it, I certainly encourage you to do so.
The main problem with freeform play is that players can get easily confused and in consequence bored. Most players (at least in my experience) don't want to start a story but want being told one
If I want to be told a story I read a book... or play a cRPG.
One important thing to keep in mind is to never let the pace drop to low. The players need to have lots of stuff to do all the time, because if they don't they'll probably get bored and lose thier drive which could end the entier campaign prematurely.
This, it's far better to give them too many things to do then not enough.
Have goblins attack 3 different towns, a NPC significant other in another, and a murdered noble to investigate. They can choose from hack and slash, romantic role play, or mystery, or something you havn't thought of.