PLOT ORBITS IN A SANDBOX

I have been working on a sandbox campaign for Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate set in Zhang Chang prefecture. This might be released as a PDF or put up on the blog, as I would like to keep releasing material for the setting so GMs have an easier time running it. If I do put it out as a PDF it will be much more modest than the Sons of Lady 87 book, which is our flagship adventure and setting supplement, as I am trying to shift towards smaller books and PDFs. Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate is a dramatic sandbox that emulates wuxia films (in the rulebook we call it Drama and Sandbox). I have been building the Zhang Chang sandbox as I run the campaign and one of the tools I am using is something I call 'plot orbiting'. This is nothing new or revolutionary, just a fun label for a simple technique that helps connect the player's exploration of the sandbox to exciting plot developments. 

I am going to discuss that here, but first I just want to review what a dramatic sandbox is. This is the opening paragraph on the section in the Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate GM section about it: 

If you want to learn more about this concept, you can find it on page 421 of the WHOG rulebook (it is pay-what-you-want at Drivethru). But it is about respecting the players freedom to explore, and not anticipating outcomes or forcing anything, but continuing to thread in active elements that help heighten the excitement and keep it in genre. It is still planned as a sandbox. I prep maps and locations. Once I set the players loose, then I start engaging in plot orbiting, which is a way to connect what the players do with interesting aspects of the sandbox. 

This is a very crude map and as you can see I am still working on the details (I need to make more locations and many of the towns don't even have names yet). But this gives you an idea of what I am developing. 

To illustrate what I mean by plot orbiting, I will talk about recent campaign events. The players decided to seek employment with a silk merchant they encountered named Li. Silk Merchant Li was on his way to Senzhou to set up an emporium and by offering to work with him, this put me in a position of having to send the players on missions (which can be dicey in sandbox campaigns). I had only just invented Silk Merchant Li moments before and using the pinning it down technique I established that he had a son who had come before him two years ago and gone missing, and that he was interested in getting an edge on local competition. This is where plot orbiting came in. I looked at other things of interest in the setting. I knew I had a killer operating out Li Manor in Xi An (a different Li, which became a point of confusion). And I knew I had a secretive sect inspired by the movie The Golden Sword called Black Leopard Villa. I decided that his son was abducted by Black Leopard Sect while staying in Li An. I wanted this to be intriguing so I made it like the movie where he went willingly because of some unknown background story (which I knew but the players didn't, and when they discover the truth I am sure it will be quite interesting to them). That instantly created a dramatic situation with the son, that had all kinds of adventure potential. 

Looking up Li Manor I saw that the head of the household was a respected engineer, so I decided that Silk Merchant Li wanted the party to infiltrate the house and take any plans for a new loom the man had designed which was reputed to double production. Once the party got there they decide to stay at an inn called the Green Raksha. I had very little information on this place, so I decided to make it connect to the Li Manor. To bring it into the plot orbit of the the manor house. I made it a black inn, where human meat was served and guests often killed. But I decided unlike many black inns, they had started acquiring their meat by scavenging the remains of victims left by the Li Manor murderer. They even know that the murderer resided at Li Manor. Because one of the players decided to snoop around the kitchen, during which time he discovered evidence of human limbs being used in food, the cooks decided to try to kill him that night. But the players were cautious and prepared, setting a trap for their assailants and extracting information about Li Manor in the process. 

Because one of the other players went to scout Li Manor while this was happening, it proved dramatically interesting. I was able to time when I went back and forth so that the reveal that a member of the household was a killer had the most impact. What I like about this kind of technique, timing shifts from one group of players and another when they split up, is you can heighten the tension, but it is all stuff that would happen regardless (you aren't inventing new information or developments just to land a surprise, the surprise is simply due to the timing of the shifts). 

Plot orbiting added to the experience at the inn, making it a more volatile situation but also connecting it to the destination they were going to. It also added to journey because they passed through Li An on the way and learned from a local weaver about the abduction of Silk Merchant Li's son. The idea is to treat any place of interest as having an orbit like a planet and being flexible and adaptive to bring other places and people the players encounter into that orbit.