Looking back at my past campaigns, the ones I’ve had the most fun running (and which were arguably the most successful) were the ones where the PCs could take a fairly sandboxy approach to exploring a wilderness region. I’d like to develop a new campaign like this again one day, but what I could use for such a campaign is an interesting premise. I am ruling the following premises out:
- Adventurers plundering old ruins for profit: Too trite.
- Adenturer-archeologists uncovering the deep history of the region for academic bragging rights: A lot of fun, but I have done this before.
- Making the region “safe” for colonization and settlement: While the whole concept of “colonizing the frontier” provides plenty of interesting background drama for a campaign that I don’t mind exploring, it is too ethically dubious to make the PCs take the side of the colonizers by default.
So, what other premises can you come up with that provide a justification for player characters to hang around a frontier region and explore it?
I’m running a game right now in a custom setting where people live on only one part of the planet, kind of Garden of Eden-style, but rather than using reverse psychology, the gods issued a challenge to the world, asking for the best and bravest to abandon the safety of civilization, and strike out into the unknown, seeking the Edge of the World. Basically a literal divine mandate.
As players explore the Wilds, they have opportunities to encounter different gods, and, if they impress them, to become their Champions. All the different gods want one of their own Champions to be the victors, so there’s squabbling and rivalries between different groups of followers, and the gods themselves.
It’s a lot like One Piece, except they’re not necessarily pirates lol