Because technical reasons are probably going to delay the start of my (now long) planned Ancient Lands sandbox campaign until early summer, I still spend a lot o time on refining ideas and getting better prepared to running such a thing myself.
One special consideration when running a game online with changing players is to keep everyone updated on what’s been happening so far. I could write a summary of each session myself, but that wouldn’t be very fun and it’s always difficult to get players to read anything between games. Having the players write the reports makes it easier for me and should be more fun to read for the other players.
How do you motivate players to write such reports when they are notoriously lazy about doing homework for the game? In this particular case I have the situation where the PCs are going to be explorers who are searching for knowledge about the supernatural. Collecting information and sharing them with other explorers of the (hopefully) constantly changing party is at the center of the campaign. And as such it feels not just justified but also really appropriate to give additional experience points to players when they write reports about their adventures and make their discoveries accessible to others. Fighters don’t get XP for fighting and witches don’t get XP for casting spells. Through the system of XP for treasure, everyone gets XP for being successful finders and retrievers of treasure. And compiling and organizing their discoveries on paper is certainly an activity that should increase characters ability to find and secure treasures.
I think I will go with giving a bonus of +10% of the last session’s XP to every player who posts a report of that game. Doesn’t matter if there’s multiple accounts or how good those reports are. I believe once you get players to write about their exciting adventures to tell other players who weren’t there, they are not going to half-arse it just for a few XP. The only difficulty is to get them motivated to start, and if there’s one thing that motivates players it’s XP. Not free XP, but earned XP! And the way XP and level advancement works in Basic, 10% extra is not actually going to make much of a difference. Every now and then a player who always writes reports will reach the next level one session before the other players but the next two or three times it might very well again be at the same time. But still, +10% is +10% percent and players are greedy.