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Often when I run games I start with no master plot. I do a type of message board system where players pick the missions they want to do. Basically I brain storm a bunch of one or two sentence help wanted adds....Something like

Recover family heirloom from demon theif.-see Tom McStuffings

Deliver package to Lakewood- See John Smith.

Clear out nest of monsters in hills near Drek's farm.

Then he party chooses the job they want to do and I create the adventure on the spot. Then I weave the jobs they do into an back story to build a grand adventure.


Any one else do something like that?

I have run a number of 'sand box' games where the game starts by having the characters all rifted someplace.
Aka I drop them off in down town Fnordia and sit back and watch. I don't have to throw trouble at them, they invariably will go out and seek out some trouble on their own. As they do so they will create, organically, the campaign setting by interacting with NPCs, finding jobs, poking their nose in secrets and what not.

It works wonderfully... as long as your group is motivated to do that sort of thing. Some groups prefer a linear story that they can follow, and that's fine too. My game Tellas was a hybrid. The players were all demigods from various pantheons who were all summoned to the planet Tellas to aid it in a demonic crisis. Due to some divine rules the gods couldn't interfere... but they could send proxies (the PCs). The players had an open ended mandate to solve the problem, but could do so in what ever way they saw fit to pursue. And they did just that. Some linked up with the military to teach new tactics, another opened up mercantile organization which he planned to use as a spy system, another started teaching off world magic...I call this style of play "Linear Sandbox"

I like to run 2 types of games.
The first and my favorite one is the sand box of a mid power range. I give my players as much free will as I can in character creation, be what ever you want with in reason the better the player is at RP the more leeway I will give them. Next I like to sit down with each player and help make the character some players need more help than others I try to work out some history and goals/motivation witch then I try to come up with some plot points specific to each character. Before I start the game I go over the area their in and if it matters how they got there as well as why they are there. Now that all that is done I start to bring up those plot points in as much of an organic manner as I can and see what the players bite on, if I'm lucky I will have players that are motivated and with help progress the story with out it feeling contrived. As the players play through these small adventures usually a large back ground story will take shape and eventually take the fore front of the game. Over all I have a tendency to run my games like a tv show or a comic book were one story just leads to the next with no real ending.
The second kind is much more structured with more limitations on the players do to the fact that I have a story concept in mind already. In these cases I am completely upfront with my players about the theam and restrictions, so they know what they are getting into. I run these like a tv show or comic book as well they are just less free form.

Blue_Lion wrote:Often when I run games I start with no master plot. I do a type of message board system where players pick the missions they want to do. Basically I brain storm a bunch of one or two sentence help wanted adds....Something like

Recover family heirloom from demon theif.-see Tom McStuffings

Deliver package to Lakewood- See John Smith.

Clear out nest of monsters in hills near Drek's farm.

Then he party chooses the job they want to do and I create the adventure on the spot. Then I weave the jobs they do into an back story to build a grand adventure.


Any one else do something like that?

Yes, that's exactly what I do. This video by Matt Colville may give you an idea or two about doing just that. I found it useful.