Some Help with A Sandbox, please!

Wik · Apr 10, 2010

Hey guys.

My group of ~~hapless~~ heroic PCs have just finished part 2 of 3 in their quest to cure the rogue of awful poison. Part 3 requires them to go to what they've dubbed the "paragon mountains of paragon paragonness". Right now, the group is in an abandoned winery - so there's a bit of an overland trek to get there.

Originally, my plan was to have each PC describe their contributions to the group's travel as part of an ongoing skill challenge, but after discussing this with Blargney, I was forced to come to the conclusion that this is a bad idea for my group. Instead, Blargney suggested a limited sandbox, built around the goal of the PCs getting to the location.

Now, I'm going to draw up a map of the area tomorrow at work (I have a very boring job, you see) - but I can tell you right now it is an Eladrin countryside, with many rural villages that are slightly magical. However, the entire countryside has been overrun by Drow Abominations (think Driders... and also Scorpion/Drow hybrids, Centipede/Drow Hybrids, and basically anything else unpleasant crossed with drow).

I plan on having events happen whether PCs are there or not, in a sort of programmed timeline. I have a general idea on how to do wandering monsters and stuff, too. What I'm looking for, though, are either set piece encounters, or random events that could be neat to spring on the group. A few ideas I have already:

A village that has been barricaded, and is being attacked by Abominations intermittingly.
A wandering Eladrin patrol, desperate to get to the capital city to relay an important (but trivial to the PCs) message.
An Eladrin village that has, in these dark times, become something of a doomsday cult. And one that is naturally focused on cannibalism.
A Spriggan Circle that is using the confusion to snatch up Eladrin to torture and turn into more Spriggans!
A fey Circle Skill Challenge involving negotiating with the spirit inside for guidance, information on the surrounding land, and maybe even a boon.
An Aberration camp - and one that naturally likes to feed upon trapped villagers.
Some questors searching for an elusive herb, said to cure the king's disease (the PCs were asked to help, but they wisely turned the king down).
Refugees, trying to find a safe place to hole up in.

Any other ideas would be appreciated!

UngainlyTitan · Apr 10, 2010

"helpful" fairies - that is helpful but is an alien and fraught with lots of opportunity for disaster and outright refusal of their help is one of the potential disasters.

LostSoul · Apr 10, 2010

I have some hex crawl generation rules for 4E, but they only make sense for Heroic levels.

Here is the meat, though, and I'm sure you can adapt to your own.

Code:

1d00	Feature
01-75	Nothing
76-80	Terrain Feature
81-85	Resource
86-90	Ruins
91-95	Lair
96-99	Dungeon
00	Special

Feature Level
 d20  Modifier
--------------
  1	-2     
 2-3	-1
 4-11	+0
12-15	+1
16-17	+2
18-19	+3
  20	+4

----------- Contents ------------
Content			% Chance 
Artifact		00	A
Gate			81-00	G
Map			76-00	P
Monster			26-00	M
Traps			51-00	T
Tricks			51-00	R
Something Strange	34-00	S

What you do is figure out what the general level is for the geographic area, then roll for each hex, and then roll on the other tables to determine what's there. "Terrain Feature" is something strange. "Resource" means people farming or mining or logging or something like that. "Ruins" are ruins. "Lair" is a group of self-sustaining monsters. "Dungeon" - I haven't dealt with that yet, but I plan on it. "Special" is something very strange.

I'm pretty sure you could ad-lib from that but more tables might help. I posted the "Terrain Features" in the plots forum so you might check on that.

Anyway, the point is to use the random roll as a springboard for imagination.

LostSoul · Apr 10, 2010

Hrm, why don't I just attach my hex crawl document. I don't know if it'll make much sense, but it might be helpful.

The ruins tables, what's there, are from the Planet Algol blog. I used them for inspiration.

edit: It's obviously not finished. Especially the monster tables.

Keefe the Thief · Apr 10, 2010

I would check Dungeon for Sidetrecks - they make excellent sandbox-locations. The last one i´ve included in my sandbox is Treed!, an encounter with an owlbear, a couple of Kenkus and a gnome from the Feywild. I turned it into a combat with an included skill-challenge: close the portal while the Kenkus fight you! If you help the gnome, she assists in the fight. And all the while the owlbear prowls the woods...

Oh, here is the link: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Treed!)