If you like the idea of creating and playing a fantasy RPG in a sandbox world but worry that there won’t be enough drama, escalate.

Tension

First, make sure that your adventures have some fundamental tension in them.

• Maybe the players have to choose between helping one faction or another.
• Maybe they learn about two different treasures and whichever they go after will leave the other for a rival company of adventurers to claim or otherwise becomes unavailable.
• Or maybe the heroes’ actions in an adventure create an opportunity for consequences they didn’t intend.

Consequences

Next, create consequences that change the environment enough to matter.

• Someone’s looking for the treasure the heroes claimed.
• Someone’s trying to get revenge for an ally the heroes killed.
• Someone’s decreed a new law to curb whatever the heroes did.

Consequences should raise the stakes a little each time, introducing new NPCs, factions, monsters, restrictions on the heroes’ activities, and so on.

Elevation

Look for opportunities to elevate the heroes’ social status:

• Granting knighthood to a martial character.
• Granting of master wizard status by the sorcery guild to an arcane caster.
• Promotion of a cleric or paladin to curate or defender of the shire.
• Hiring of a rogue as a spy for a noble patron, reporting back on the party’s exploits and any news of the patron’s rivals.
• Hiring of the whole party as champions of a noble, embarking on requested missions as well as whatever adventures they like that don’t clash with their patron’s interests.

This can happen multiple times:

• Granting lands to a martial character, making him or her a lord/lady of the manor.
• Inviting a wizard to join the sorcery guild’s council and become privy to its secrets and library (and needs).
• Promotion of a cleric or paladin to protector of the realm.
• Hiring of the whole party as royal champions, embarking on requested missions as well as whatever adventures they like that don’t clash with the royal interests.

A Villain

Create a powerful bad guy for the players to focus their wrath on, and have that bad guy eventually become vulnerable to them. The character should have a goal of some sort, so that he or she can react to events in ways that make sense.

• It’s a powerful wizard, but he or she will be traveling with a small entourage soon.
• It’s a crafty noble in the king’s court, and the heroes have been invited to a ball there.
• It’s a hated merchant whose powerful NPC children will be away on an adventure soon.
• It’s a criminal knight who has just been declared an outlaw.

Now the heroes can step up and try to take out the bad guy rather than just go after another treasure they heard about. And chances are, whether or not they succeed, doing so will create more opportunities for consequences.

Escalation

In this way, you gradually turn up the heat on the campaign. The heroes are tackling legendary villains and hobnobbing with royalty. A war gets started, a city burns, a king is assassinated. If you have a sufficiently scheming villain, events will start to suggest themselves.