Running DnD with No Plot (Emergent Storytelling) 

Links to References in the Video: Don't Prep Plots (The Alexandrian): tinyurl.com/59byxvkm Mausritter PDF Itch.io (Pay What You Want): tinyurl.com/mr3becmh Mausritter PDF DriveThruRPG (Pay What You Want): tinyurl.com/cvx54xtx Mausritter Box Set Exalted Funeral: tinyurl.com/3u3a4u9v Worlds Without Number FREE PDF: tinyurl.com/43nxtwna Worlds Without Number Deluxe PDF/Print: tinyurl.com/4rye49jw Halls of the Blood King (Print): tinyurl.com/2pxvwamx Halls of the Blood King (PDF): tinyurl.com/5xhpjryr Dungeon World (PDF): tinyurl.com/2s45urur

Frodo, Sam, and Gandalf were following an adventure path Merry, Pippin, Gimli, and Legolas were in a sandbox game

I think another reason why people feel the pressure to have this big storyline is that many younger people got into D&D from broadcasted online. And we tend to forget that those people are youtubers, livestreamers, people in the entertainment business etc. They are professional entertainers producing content for us to enjoy. You cant put those expectations on yourself and your fellow players without inevitably being dissappinted.

"The story happens at the table." you nailed it -- that's it in a nutshell! Thanks for calling out the "situations" model. As a DM, it can be fun to be as surprised as your players to see how things unfold!

The best advice I’ve ever ready that sums up this video is this: “prep the world, not the session”

I have always been a proponent of having places, people, and things to do, and then letting the players decide where and what they interact with.

I have been a GM for almost fifty years now and I've developed a system that works for me. Start off with a session zero. Let your players know what you expect to come out of the session zero beforehand. On the day of the session zero, find out what kind of adventures your players want. How did they meet/why do they want to adventure with each other? What are their individual motivations to adventure? What does everyone want to play and how well will that work (don't try and change their minds). What level does everyone want to start at? You now have the bare bones to prepare the initial rumors/problems that they can choose from. Provide them with 3-5 situations that need dealing with and let them decide what they want to do. There might be a job to escort a merchant to his next destination. A criminal has escaped and there is a reward for his capture. You overhear a drunken teamster talking about the heavy chests he just delivered. Rats have been attacking residents and there is a 1 GP per tail bounty. A caravan is forming up to go to the next kingdom and can use more guards. The beautiful thing with this is that some of the hooks will go away by the time that the party finishes the one they chose, another party could have done it. Some of them could have gotten worse, the rats are getting bolder and have snatched a baby from a crib. There will always be new ones and some old ones the seemed to have gone away may resurface later as an even bigger problem (the haunting of the cemetery calmed down, only to turn into a plague of ghouls three months later). Most adventures will follow standard tropes, so you can improvise them with ease. Don't forget to throw in a curveball or two so that there is some spice in the stew, something they didn't expect (the merchant's apprentice running off with some gold, a sick child in a village they are passing through, an unwilling bride that has been promised to a bad man, etc, etc). I have been able to keep my adventurers on their toes for adventure after adventure by doing this. If they want a more focused campaign, give it to them. The Lord's seneschal may need trouble shooters. The local Thieves guide (with a heart of gold) needs help fending off rivals. A merchant captain may need their help to explore a new land he has found.

i’m a new dm, the campaign i’m running now started as a horror one-shot. everyone barely survived and wanted to continue on with their beloved characters. i have been struggling a lot with where to take the story next, and hearing “the story happens at the table” felt like a weight lifted off my chest. i love the idea of looking at your map and going “okay what’s happening over here” and letting that guide the world rather than trying to force everybody into what i THINK could be a good story. long story short, thank you thank you thank you, i’ve been struggling a lot with this !!!

I have multiple loose adventure plot ideas…then players choose…then I make it up as I go…usually taking player conversation as my guiding light!

I love emergent storytelling, is the perfect way to narrate a world in which the players and the GM contribute almost the same to the worldbuilding, and also a great way to promote player agency in a pretty much plot-forced landscape.

I have always preferred the emergent storytelling in a sandbox style game. I usually start with a detailed city, that has a lot of detailed NPCs and things happening that the players can interact with. Ultimately I want the party to feel like they have a "home base" to go back to once they start adventuring. I will have some possible storylines that may take them out of the city for short periods of time if they choose to follow and one or two major world affecting events that will begin to unfold even if the players do not make choices to go in that direction. The campaign I am currently running is the first time I used a list of rumors that the players have all heard before the game started, with a few of them being ones that will be revealed as true during the unfolding of a few events as the story unfolds. I have always been lucky and had a couple of very proactive players that are always looking for something for their characters to do, so it is easy for me to put those hooks in front of them. It may take a year for them to eventually interact with the main world affecting events, but I want the pace of the game to be determined by the actions of the players. I only use hard timelines in games that are meant to have a set ending and/or are only going to last a handful of sessions.

I do a bit of both. Me and my group enjoy an overarching story and I as the DM, enjoy coming up with a creative story. However I also really enjoy when the players take the story in their own hands and we create something together. Great video! Gave me a lot of inspiration!

Really great video. One of the rarer kind that, while echoing principles that exist in many other videos, offers a solid alternative angle from which to view and think about them. Emergent storytelling is a term I've heard used rarely, if ever, in other videos about sandbox games. They discuss it in various other forms, but you do a great job of really outlining how that comes together and what kind of storytelling that really is. And I can say that because you've helped me unlock the mental tangle I have over a couple areas of my approach. Thank you!

Great advice. Emergent storytelling can, in the end, resemble an 'over arching' story after all is said and done. The advantage to emergent storytelling is that it is organic. It 'emerges' through many player choices in the campaign and thus is more engaging to the players. This is THEIR story, not some contrived plot created outside their purview in which they are merely non descript participants. Like you said, I create several 'hooks' and the players choose which one to pursue. The other thing important to remember is that it takes a LOT of stress off the DM... they don't have to worry about 'keeping the players on track'.. and its never boring. It exciting because even the DM has no idea where things will ultimately go. I feel like I am the chronicler of the events. I'm not a storyteller, I am a story enabler.

Man you resqued me. I just started to adding some new factions (as my players entered the new dungeon) and I had some troubles to make them feel real. Thank you very much!😁

Direct communication, love it. Pointing out that you are no storyteller and this is maybe too much to ask of GMs regularly...helped me clear my mind about it. Thanks! I am apparently entering my second age of roleplaying and I noticed that I just don't have the energy or time to come up with AMAZING STORIES every other week. Really binging all advice such as yours. Thanks twice!

Great video! I've been loving your videos and format!

Great stuff as always. That Mausritter faction system looks super lightweight and simple to run, thanks for mentioning that!

Its almost like writing a choose your own adventure that accounts for every choice is very hard. Only a few video games have done it successfully. I write the next session based on the choices within the last session and then try to also include as many decision paths as i can and try to predict the actions of the characters and account for those.

This is pretty much how I've been doing things without ever hearing of this method hahaha. Glad I can finally put a name on it

"Fronts" are essentially how I ran Dragon Heist. So many people recommend dropping Chapter 2 because it doesn't advance the plot, but that's exactly why I kept it. I expanded the faction quests and let the players decide which factions to ally with and which ones to investigate. Though I chose summer as the season, the players showed much greater interest in pursuing the Zhentarim and Xanathar's Guild. I ended up dropping Jaraxle entirely because keeping up with four enemy groups would become confusing. While they loved some of the cultist quests, they didn't follow up on them much, and I didn't want the cult to become a main villain that sprung up out of seemingly nowhere. I let the players choose their enemies, and their actions decided which ones gained and lost power. In the end, they took extra steps to sabatoge the activities of the Zhentarim "splinter faction" (as they believed it to be), and because they chose to keep one of Xanathar's gazers as a pet, Nihiloor ambushed them at the Vault of Dragons instead of the villain I had at one point imagined. I ended the entire adventure at the Trollskull Tavern's Grand Opening, with all of the most memorable NPC's they befriended showing up for a celebration at the end, and Laerel herself showed up to thank them for retrieving the gold for the city.

Nice overview of emergent storytelling. Looking forward to more from you!

You basically described what I try to achieve. It originally started as something of a hybrid, I wanted the players to have a single storyline that was "the" storyline. But I realized that players go off the rails with impunity. So I wanted there to be other things going on that they could engage with, other things happening that would happen whether they engaged or not, and other plotlines for them to pursue. It helped the world feel alive when they noticed hints of some "side quest" and then saw later hints and realized that things had developed. I've never had as much fun as I have running these games where the world exists, the characters exist in it, and we write stories there together. It can be a LOT more work than a non-emergent setting, IMO. You have to know the world, the characters, the things that are happening, and you have to move them forward as the game progresses. However, the end result is that I spend an immense amount of time preparing my world, and less worrying about cultivating storylines specifically intended for players to engage with. After all, they end up engaging with them anyway, now don't they? And if they don't... well... That's one more kind of story too.

Ran a campaign for decades with my kids and their friends. As the grew up, the game matured as well. Created a world with more than one storyline, and LOTS of random encounters. Using random encounters also keeps the players attention on the game.

subscribed - love this content - you do a great job of explaining the system as a whole here - excited to dive into your other videos - i'm a huge fan of DW's Fronts and sandbox gaming in general

Thank you. This was extremely helpful.

Highly recommend also using random treasure tables, especially for treasure. Introducing odd magical items or limited use ones change the powers of the party in an unpredictable way, and can create really interesting stories as the players engage with the world in new ways.

I appreciate that you're not saying don't prep. I mostly prep situations and moments I know are coming. Most of my prep is unknown backstory and paying off threads from the backstory and paying off threads the game set up.

Great approach!

I recently started my first ever sandbox (running a Stars Without Number campaign). Session 1 that was fairly scripted, just to give the PCs a reason for why they met, where they got their space, and push them out into the wider galaxy. Session 2 things opened up, and I told my players: "I've made the nouns, you make the verbs". And honestly that mindset makes all the difference. Both sides of the table are having a blast.

This is pretty much how I’ve always run games (in a multitude of systems, for many decades), and it works great. Only the term is new for me, so it’s nice to have a definition to help explain what I’m doing to new players. Thanks! 🎉

Really appreciate this video! Keep up the good work :)

You've done a great job articulating what I used to do when I DM'd, although I was a lot more "seat of my pants" than "tables written down." I was real big on a mostly sandbox system with lots of factions and letting the players decide what gets the focus. A big thing that goes without saying is that a lot depends on your players. Some of my best games were with players who were almost random and they added a lot of delightful chaos to the proceedings without ruining it. I've also seen players who have more video game experience than tabletop experience require that overarching linear plot or they feel completely lost.

I'm looking to implement this kind of stuff into my plans. Thanks for the ideas!

Excellent video! Thank you!

My original Antagonist became an ally, a Mexican stand-off over an artifact, and a backstory for half the world. All thanks to my players. I buy snacks for my players because they deserve it.

I played a game like this at GaryCon. The DM was late, but he showed up and we started playing. He had a basic plot based on a module and just made it all up the entire game, and it worked quite well. Clearly he had all the rules in his head and there was no set dungeon or anything. We all had fun and had a lot of laughs!

Dude, can't agree more. I've been wanting to DM a sandbox campaing for quit a while, had the opportunity to pause the ongoing ToA campaign for some sessions and we played a sandbox game using Shadowdark. I had a blast from the start, the players got the spirit of it after the second session and it was awesome. Since then, once I wrap up the ongoing ToA campaign, I'll take a loooong break from 5e and those linear style long games. I'll run a sandbox campaing on Dolmenwood, which have me super hyped to start.

love how thouhgt out this vid is man!

TY 4 the Vid.! I will definitely add some of these process to my games. TYVM

Excellent video!

Thanks for the tips.

excellent video! subscribed!

This has been helpful. Ive been very plot driven and its been unsuccessful. Im gonna try this now.

We have been playing sandbox or emerhent storytelling from day 1 it is nice to hear about more groups doing it.

Great video. I've been DM'ing since I was 9 years old, with a long hiatus between 20 and 37, and I've only recently realized that this is the best way to DM. Now, at my 40s I've DMed the most memorable campaigns of my life because I've turned to giving the players an initial conflict or two that they will decide how to interact with. According to those interactions I prep session to session. I do a lot of work creating the NPCs, especially, because their interaction with NPCs is what will create the story. I usually DM real world historical settings with no monsters or (obvious) magic. Right now DMing the Great Pendragon Campaign, but starting much earlier, when Romans leave Britain. PCs ended up feuding each other, so the story is revolving around their rivalries. So much fun.

You're totally right. Players are looking to tell the story. When they have ideas and change the world, they are creating plot. It will naturally grow in scale as the next logical step (idea) comes up. DMs only really need to be willing to ask them questions and pose situations. The players do the heavy lifting and feel rewarded for it the whole way. They often get the sense of "being smart" because thier ideas made impacts on the world.

This is what made me try out different systems. D&D is "the" tabletop-rpg for a reason but it's far from perfect. I really dig TRPGs that put emergent storytelling to the forefront like Blades in the Dark (also because I love Dishonored), Avatar Legends (not the greatest system but very light and fun to run), or Ten Candles which to me is the best system when it comes to helping you create a well paced story. The rules of TC are all in service of pushing the narrative forward. There is no plotting, planning, minutiae like D&D often breeds. The story happens at the table and the players have a lot of say in that story, even when it comes to the dangers, world and everything else that the GM has a monopoly over in most TRPGs. Your tips are great for making D&D more emergent but it might be worth for to look into different systems If that is the focus of your games.

I like this. Recently ran dnd for a group and we developed the worlds history with microscope. This created interesting factions that the players were familiar with and gave me ideas for scenarios.

Excellent points! There's a real magic also in using randomization tools like Worlds Without Number has to create an interconnected world without getting too much attached to any of the situations and locations this created.

All of the things you described as exhausting, sounded absolutely thrilling to me. Maybe I should become a GM lol

The bloodking module storyline screams Castlevania to me.

Subscribing and hoping to see more like this! This is how I've been wanting to run my games, but it feels like little "official" material is aimed in this direction.

I really liked this one. For the last few years I've rarely had anything planned beyond the next session or two. Often the players tell me what they want to do next through there characters. Now, that's not 100%. Sometimes I have to place some deep hooks to get them moving, but I enjoy running something THEY want more. Great video and you earned a sub.

even seeing OSE in the background, i knew this was going to have some great points.

When I run Chaotica games there either isn't a story, and players explore freely until one naturally emerges, or there is a branching story that they can explore. Stories naturally emerge when you have a variety of NPCs with different goals. The trick, as always, is keeping the party together. With the branching storyline, as DM I can see where the story might go, but I don't know what decisions the players will make and what direction they will take it. I can see six of the possible endings by the time they reach chapter 9, but there is no fixed path. Each chapter gives me suggestions on what choices to offer the player, but they're always free to come up with new options of their own. It's great because players know that they are being given plot relevant choices, and that they can, if they really want to go in their own direction as well.

I love the sandbox style of play but I've found that it can sometimes be frustrating for some of my players. It comes down to learning how your players play, what they like, and finding ways to change the pace of the game in response to the energy level at the table: sometimes it is best to just sit back and let your players deliberate for hours about how they plan on running their bookbinding company; other times you need to throw down a bit of railroad track to move things along toward something more exciting. One of the worst things about playing online with a VTT is that you often can't get a read on everyone's energy level...which makes it even more important to talk to your players. If some of the group is getting lost in all the directionlessness of the emergent sandbox, it helps to be ready with something a bit more dramatic and intentional.

I cannot believe I've never seen this channel before now. Amazing video, and you have a great voice for these kinds of video essays. Can't wait to see more from you.

My current open landscape campaign is in it's eight year! And it is fucking great. Good tips. I want to see more vidoes from Earthmote.

Useful video thank you.

Excellent video ty

I kinda do a mix of both. There is an overarching plot, but players' actions have a kind of butterfly effect on how things turn out. So I write what might be happening during the session and I know what plans the factions and NPCs have, but I usually don't write much further until my players had their turn interacting with the world.

Great video

Emergent storytelling for everybody, but mostly for me (the GM) 😊 insta sub, matey!

I so far have used published modules/adventures, but I increasily try include elements of verisimilitude that the emergent style provokes. It feels more fulfilling for me, although I am not sure my players care or notice. Your premise about it reducing stress for the DM? Not so sure about that; maybe I just need to get better. You earned my subscription with this video. I hope you will follow up with more on this topic.

It's how I run groups now and running three groups exactly like this. A world populated with different encounters and quests, almost all are sole and singular where the players can visit at will. It takes a lot of stress off of me as the GM because I don't have to force an arching storyline or plot. I don't have to worry about making a massive world-ending game to win where everything has to fit and I stress out over also adding in background subplots and other junk. Nope, the word is the world and the players end up changing stuff on the local level that helps change stuff on the larger level. The idea that the "only way to play" is with a massive plotline and story to complete is a farce that I have run into far too many people who believe in. Instead of make quests as I desire with full freedom and sometimes stuff that players do anger other groups who then react. It fully opens the game world up and it gets rid of the common burn-out issues that GMs have with plots and storylines.

This was always my approach when running a game or campaign. It's not my story, it's theirs. I'm just there to help them interact with the game world. The choices, consequences and directions are entirely up to them. Granted, this was mostly in the days of AD&D, which seems to be better suited to a more free-form approach to running a game, but I'm just old school...

Nice video. Played this way and the grand story way. Both can work with the right players.

I began this campaign March 2020. I had vague ideas but they have yet to materialize. We are still going at it and new ideas spawn new content following the paths the players choose. I did not imagine having reached what we have done.

I would... Probably say that on a campaign that I'm currently dm'ing, I've been experiencing a sort of sandbox campaign style, although I wouldn't say it's an entirely true emergent story campaign. Like, since the beginning, there was a very clearcut goal, that was literally the name of the campaign: Slay the Beast of Oaksfell. Now, all of the campaign has been surrounding the idea of the characters exploring the maps and picking up weapons, pieces of information and lore to puzzle out what the beast really was, and how to categorically slay it, since... Well, it's basically more then just a monster, but an intelligent creature protecting a region from something else. I never said them how they should conduct their investigations, though. Or where to find information. They just kept asking npc's, and I kept spilling information, and linking to places of interest in my map, that I had decided previously that I would use. So far, it has been pretty interesting the campaign, partially because while there is the clear conflict with the beast, there is also the conflict of the characters navigating through a world that both is very alien to them (in the sense that none of them is from that region, and many customs and stories are just odd to them and they have to figure out if they are suspicious behaviour or just general oddities), and also full of places of interest that they are really curious to explore. And I mean... They haven't even figured out that their benefactor is vampire in disguise, playing his cards and securing his own interests. Not that he's particularly evil, just not the most altruistic one in all the world.

Thank you

Your pitch for sandbox play is convincing. Thanks for the brief. Would you demonstrate session prep for a single session, please 🙏

This is one of the best videos for making a DM want to DM. Fun is something to DM should be having. Not just at the table, but also when preparing to play. Have the NPC faction and monster do their own plots and plans makes for a living world. Now, I am not even sure what is going happen next. I am inspired to DM to see what my world is going to do next week. 🤷‍♂️

great advice will share this with my DM

The word for Plot based Story line campaigns is "Linear". Even if the claim is made that the world is open, you must still go step by step through the chain to reach the goal. My favorite style is the sand box with almost everything being a "side quest" since there is no main quest boxing players in. After a while, some of the "sides" seem related, but the players ultimately choose to go down that path. It has worked for me for over 30 years.

I would also say you can do this for a setting you're creating as well. So many DMs spend hours creating their setting and then are disappointed when the players don't care about. Slowly create your setting around them instead of writing everything. Rule number one: if the players can't interact with it, they don't care about it.

I use sandbox style. All of us at the table sit down and talk about what they want to play. I’m lucky enough to have a very well developed home brew world to play in with caravan routes, political intrigue that already exists, and things like that. I’ve had a few “plotted” campaigns go completely off the rails and turned into “look, we just want a damn job and we will do anything within reason” type of road adventure where the group started off as caravan guards and eventually became traders running their own caravan to different places. The adventures dealt with regional politics, random encounters that lead to cleaning up some hostile areas, and role playing transactions as they try to become rich. Fun times. The players are the story tellers, as the DM I’m the referee and do the injects to see what sticks and takes the table on the trip. Some things will be random, others planned out in advance.

Nice. I feel like this is my game style already... Now I have a name for it. Cheers

Apparently I've been doing emergent storytelling along with the overall story. I've run two groups through (modified by me) different modules, but from day 1 took cues from them on elements they did and did not like. I started them both with a low level into module, the same one, and both groups produced vastly different ideas and went on different paths. I used the modules loosely and where necessary tying a lot of elements to the characters, NPCs they met not from the module, and their backstories. Both games lasted more than 5 years, the second one is coming to it's end in the next few months. Tying backgrounds together and into the story just seemed like a no brainer to me, and didn't realize it was more along this style than just running the module until you (in a way) pointed it out for me. Now to do it all, but in wildspace... (I was already ditching the book on this next one)

I love the color scheme for the blood King pictures.

Be able to make up small stories on the spot in whatever environment your players choose. Use that as a seed for a larger idea you can expand on later. If you need more time in a session because you don't have something prepared, start a fight. That will eat up an hour and can lead to another seed. Everything is an opportunity for an idea that expands on itself, one event following another. Not every idea has to be good. You don't have to be super clever. Never stop moving. Eventually the little ideas build into a larger campaign, and then into an entire world full of factions and history. None of it has to be pre-planned. Your players will let you know what they are invested in. Let the players do the work, and bring you their snacks and praise. Your players won't feel like they are stuck on the rails of a published campaign going from one fight to another to progress a pre-determined plot that was chosen for them to care about. They will care about the game and their characters because they care about their own choices.

i remember being 14 and 5e just came out, so me and my buddies would just run campaigns where you start in a tavern and the rest is improv. aaaaah, the good ol days 😭

I run a no plot dungeon delve based on OSE style with 5e rules. It was the best decision I have made to create a long term sustainable dnd group where I wasn’t overly burdened as the dm.

I like the situations model. I haven't played or DMed in years but I have thought about it. I do some fiction writing and and have been developing a fantasy world through short stories. I want to do old school, in person gaming. Good video, you've given me some ideas to work on.

my game is a loose sandbox / story line. I love prepping and creating encounters and dungeons, but i dont force players to follow a specific path. I do inject a snippet of story as we go along by finding specific treasures or story related items that hint towards something of a story line. As well some NPCs will have some hints of the story line either by the way they interact or something they are wearing or an item or something like that. The game play flows based on where the players go. If they pick up on some of the story hints then i will increase those things or offer a story line hook to see if they are interested. If not we keep running based on their game play.

I think I did a similar thing. I made a map, I did all the worldbuilding enough to know what factions, characters and situations the players might find in each place in the map, and just let them point somewhere and say "We're going there"

I think it often depends on what motivates the characters to be adventuring in the first place (which of course is based on the player's style of play) If the players are motivated by their characters becoming more powerful and more wealthy... then gold and XP will keep them wandering, exploring and investigating any situation you put in front of them. But if the players are more fussy about what they will or won't have their character investigate, you need to make them be clear about their character goals from the beginning. Sometimes players don't really think about that, and other times they do... but their goals don't make sense for an adventurer. By doing this up front, you can make sure the motivations of different characters don't conflict (at least not too much), and that specific players don't have a goal that revolves 100% around them (e.g. "I only adventure to find my lost family. Any encounter or situation that doesn't further my goal will be ignored") Are they adventuring due to a sense of duty to their community, or church, or faction? Are they adventuring because they want to be a famous adventurer with stories told about them? Are they adventuring to find treasure to pay off a debt? Are they adventuring to rid the world of evil? Are they collecting something that requires going to remote and interesting places? That should really help when thinking about the factions and the goals of the NPCs, and how to make it conflict with the PC goals.

Nice Joe Abercrombie shoutout lol. Love the First Law

From almost 20 years of ttrpg I’ve learned that above all, players get emotionally invested in their characters and want them to do cool things. As a DM if I develop interesting NPCs for their PCs to interact with and use just enough descriptive imagery to make the setting/backdrop believable, that’s enough for satisfying gameplay. A cool story is satisfying for me but it is secondary. As a GM I need to work smart not hard and just worry about facilitating theater of the mind with enough opportunities to roll dice and win prizes… because that’s what I would want as a player!!

Yea this hobby is for story tellers. That's just the reality pf it, if you aren't a story teller (not professional tier per say, just someone who loves stories and has the skill to help craft one) then you aren't gonna be as good of a DM. There are skills required to be good at this thing we do.

Outside of one-shots I usually start with a strong hook that leads to a sandbox. I it with factions, and usually there are a couple major conflicts unfolding in the setting. Then the players take it from there. Interestingly enough, by the end I the campaign it begins to resemble a plot line based game more and more, as the players have chosen sides and motivations and their BBEG and final goal. My players are just highly motivated and big into narrative, so I get to flex both my sandbox and storytelling muscles almost every time.

I actually used this kind of system for years now - I currently GM for 5 groups all in the same world but in different areas, but all playing a single adventure - I do not currently use the faction goals/rumor table/encounter table system (yet) as I mostly make that up on the fly and add it retroactively to the story of my world - I do have a few important things that could happen but as you said for me it's the most important thing to create a living and breathing world together with my players and factions and NPCs change all the time according to how the players interact with them - great links - i´m sure to download and read some of those

I write the next session based on the choices within the last session and then try to also include as many decision paths as i can and try to predict the actions of the characters and account for those.

I totally agree with you. I tend to use other peoples modules as main adventures in my D&D world and I like to have what happens there, in the module, determine what happens going forward. They rescue the merchant and his wife In the Hobgoblin lair at the Caves of Chaos and he rewards them but also gives them a chance for a new mission. Maybe caravans are getting raided and he wants someone to investigate. Or he's got a cargo to go to restenford that he needs guards for, and they need to catch a boat in Salt Marsh. Or in the caves they had a loyal retainer who goes home to Orleans after the caves and the group goes to Pick them up on the way to their next adventure and low and behold his mom says he's disappeared and there is something weird happening to the townspeople. Or we have the merchants daughter captured by bandits and the party is engaged as a known trusted quantity to retrieve her. I use surviving villains and found characters as the drivers for what happens next. I have an idea that there are Lizard Men or Elves that may be involved with an elder god and interested in breaking up my loosely affiliated ecumenical country that my PC's are from. But I'm trying to have what they do create the story line. I use a random tailored encounter table for travel which works the same way your random encounters seem to. There are marshall's offices and post offices which are the federal authorities in my loosely amalgamated Country. There is a ten most wanted poster in all of these offices that tends to morph a bit as they move from region to region. Yeah I'm not trying to write a novel. I'm trying to plan interesting encounters.

Great advice! Hail the Alexandrian!

I feel like you can definitely prep plots and still have player agency. I agree that emergent storytelling is important, but you need not abandon the concept of a plot to enjoy it. I started playing D&D without a set story and I found that while it can be immensely satisfying it’s very easy to make a game feel purposeless for your players. Personally I see the plot as a way to present player choices and shape the story. When I write a campaign skeleton it is just that - a skeleton without meat, with massive gaps for the players to fill in. My most recent campaign was always going to end with a confrontation against the Drowned King, but the players choices spanned far more than just his story. They each got to pursue their past, made alliances and enemies, fought against demons and celestials alike. Some of those stories would tie into the BBEG, building his legend until they finally met him for the first time. They could have turned away from his quest but by the point they finally met the guy everyone was already invested. Even after they met him there were large periods of time for players to pursue personal goals, and I tied those choices into the end battle as allied abilities to call upon during the fight. It was incredibly satisfying tor me and them, and while I got to choose a small part of the story the vast majority of it was their passions guiding my hand. I’m not trying to say that you’re wrong about emergent storytelling it was a huge part of the world I built. But I feel like a plot can be wonderful with a flexible gm and a curious party

Ive been constantly running games for the last 5-8 years like this. I dont have the brain cells to write consistent stories, I run Rule of Cool, and let the players place their print on the story.

I'm doing this a new campaign with my wife and son . I made a mega city and build it out as they explore it. I make a number of things for them to due and expand each story as they go. I get some of my old player friends to do drop in PCs with a one shot quest in the city they can come as go so no schedule issues.

without even needing to see the video, you get a thumbs up and follow. no one talks about this stuff, so much garbage on youtube dming, no one knows the actual advice you would learn in a writing class.

As a professional BSer who despises structure, I have found that the best way for me to build a story is to have a one sentence descriptor for a beginning, middle, and end of an arc. Everything else is either pulled out of thin air or brought into play by the players