Installing Rulers

Of campaigns I have run these past few years, two were open sandboxes and in both of them, after a little poking around dungeons, the partys decided to lock in on some currently non-descript local dweller and get them elevated to a position of power. As the meme says, odd that it happened twice.

Is there something in here about the domain game of D&D being emergent in a convergent-evolution style? Left to their own devices, a party of PCs naturally seeks to instil order, even if it is not to put a crown on their own heads?

Is this just a reaction against whatever the DM is throwing against them - if what they get is a structure plot or obvious hooks, then they will focus on hijinks and chaos creation along the way. If what they get is a pure open sandbox and they can do anything at all, is the reaction to try and impose order and dominion?

These were two completely unrelated groups of players - the first campaign was Southern Reaches where a mix of UK, Ireland and Austria based players playing remotely eventually decided that their goal was going to be getting one of their number elected as mayor of the local big city. The player of that PC had needed to quit so they were effectively a known NPC at that point - no power would have accrued to an active player.

The second time was for my current sandbox, which as running under the name of Realm of the Reluctant King since this effort to crowbar a kingdom in under an NPC is now the main focus. The NPC in question has even told them not to, disavowed any will to be responsible for the locality and fled the region. The current main effort of the campaign is to pry him out of the hands of slavers and bring him back to install at the head of the realm they have hammered together.

It is fun to have as a DM because players self-organising a main goal is always very helpful and even when they succeed fully, it does not shatter the campaign or leave you struggling to deal with epic level problems - a friendly ruler just brings great potential for quests - all the good stuff involved with realm level play but without the irritating book keeping (for the players) or the unchecked means to squander and abuse the resources of the realm (from the DMs perspective).

One could try and work in some complex thesis of around changing of psychology over the years where old-line campaigns were gold and glory but now people just want a good king but I think that is off my field of expertise and I am just going to chalk it up to coincidence for now.

For both these open campaigns, players seizing onto a long haul goal has worked well because the tactical opportunities along the way to that strategic goal are great fodder for single sessions. Having a general idea of what they want to do and then traipsing about in an open sandbox to figure out how to pull it off works well. It brings NPCs and their concerns more to the foreground compared to sites, monsters and treasures in a traditional dungeon delver campaign.

I like it as well because it means the players are being proactive - which is interesting for me, even if sometimes they sprint for the horizon in an unexpected direction. I need to have a handle on a wider range of stuff so that they can go where they like, but it is less work than coming up with 'why should you care' hooks for every little thing they run into; they bring their hook along with them, I just need to hang things on it.

(Alas, I while this is very handy for me, I have no idea how it happened nor can offer any advice on how to make it happen for your table.)