4E The Nentir Vale: A Sandbox

[Shades of Green]

Out of curiosity (and lack of knowledge of the 4E modules), may I ask how large is that Vale? Does your sandbox focus on the several towns/locations you've detailed up, or do some adventure locations fall in the deeper wilderness around them?

 

[P1NBACK]

Sorry for the thread resurrection, this thread is pure gold. I'm interested to see how this panned out for you LostSoul.

 

[LostSoul]

I ended up rewriting a lot of material for my current game. I wanted to come up with a method to generate content on the fly. I wrote a series of random tables and filled in a hex map of the Nentir Vale with the content those tables provided. Some of this is still in use, but not too much.

I'm glad you like it, though!

 

[P1NBACK]

I ended up rewriting a lot of material for my current game. I wanted to come up with a method to generate content on the fly. I wrote a series of random tables and filled in a hex map of the Nentir Vale with the content those tables provided. Some of this is still in use, but not too much.

I'm glad you like it, though!

You got this stuff up on the Webz anywheres?

 

[LostSoul]

I might have a thread around here somewhere...

There's the "Hex Crawl.pdf" in my playtest thread (which I need to update with some minor siege warfare from Tuesday).

Here's a sample hex, filled out:

[sblock=0.10]
01.10 TERRAIN FEATURE - PLAINS - LEVEL 4
Giant skeleton of unidentified, snake-like creature with all-too-human skull running along the ridgeline.

As the King's Road heads into the Gardbury Downs, travellers can see this giant skeleton. It's known as "The Bones of Zehir."

The skeleton is of an ancient primordial that fell in battle with Zehir, both struggling to control the snakes of the world. Its bones are strong and have stood here for aeons, barely weathering.

When the yuan-ti ruled the world they would gather here and pray to Zehir, using this monument as a sign of their chosen god's power and that they did right by aligning with him. There are prayers carved into the bones in draconic, talking about how great Zehir is and how strong he is and how the world is the yuan-ti's thanks to his victories over the "imposters and false prophets".

Map: Engraved on the bones are rituals and prayers to Zehir, including what must be done to open up the gate to the Lost Prison of Zehir (the dungeon in 01.05): soaking two 5000 gp rubies in the blood of enemies of Zehir, then placing them in the open eye sockets of the entrance.

Monster: Rats infest this area, chewing and gnawing on the bones. They gain strength from the primordial power that still lingers here. 7 rat swarms live here; they climb all over the bones and under the ground. They are strangely hostile and will attack when they smell fresh meat.

Trick: There's enough power here left to inflict worshippers of Zehir with a curse - anyone who prays to Zehir nearby is attacked, +7 v Will; in 1d6 days they will turn into a snake with a human head. Not good. The yuan-ti used to do this, then ritually slay the creature in a big orgy of blood. If, however, a primal prayer or ritual to Bryakus, Father of Serpents, is performed, the character's eye teeth grow into fangs that drip poison: Str vs AC, 1d4 and ongoing 5 + Con mod poison damage.

Something Strange: Characters who spend the night here have a vision of the statues to the primordials in 34.05.

Links to Other Areas:
34.05 (Giant-sized statues of ancient rulers, untouched by time.)
Contents: Map; Monster; Trick; Something Strange[/sblock]

 

[P1NBACK]

I might have a thread around here somewhere...

There's the "Hex Crawl.pdf" in my playtest thread (which I need to update with some minor siege warfare from Tuesday).

Here's a sample hex, filled out:

[sblock=0.10]
01.10 TERRAIN FEATURE - PLAINS - LEVEL 4
Giant skeleton of unidentified, snake-like creature with all-too-human skull running along the ridgeline.

As the King's Road heads into the Gardbury Downs, travellers can see this giant skeleton. It's known as "The Bones of Zehir."

The skeleton is of an ancient primordial that fell in battle with Zehir, both struggling to control the snakes of the world. Its bones are strong and have stood here for aeons, barely weathering.

When the yuan-ti ruled the world they would gather here and pray to Zehir, using this monument as a sign of their chosen god's power and that they did right by aligning with him. There are prayers carved into the bones in draconic, talking about how great Zehir is and how strong he is and how the world is the yuan-ti's thanks to his victories over the "imposters and false prophets".

Map: Engraved on the bones are rituals and prayers to Zehir, including what must be done to open up the gate to the Lost Prison of Zehir (the dungeon in 01.05): soaking two 5000 gp rubies in the blood of enemies of Zehir, then placing them in the open eye sockets of the entrance.

Monster: Rats infest this area, chewing and gnawing on the bones. They gain strength from the primordial power that still lingers here. 7 rat swarms live here; they climb all over the bones and under the ground. They are strangely hostile and will attack when they smell fresh meat.

Trick: There's enough power here left to inflict worshippers of Zehir with a curse - anyone who prays to Zehir nearby is attacked, +7 v Will; in 1d6 days they will turn into a snake with a human head. Not good. The yuan-ti used to do this, then ritually slay the creature in a big orgy of blood. If, however, a primal prayer or ritual to Bryakus, Father of Serpents, is performed, the character's eye teeth grow into fangs that drip poison: Str vs AC, 1d4 and ongoing 5 + Con mod poison damage.

Something Strange: Characters who spend the night here have a vision of the statues to the primordials in 34.05.

Links to Other Areas:
34.05 (Giant-sized statues of ancient rulers, untouched by time.)
Contents: Map; Monster; Trick; Something Strange[/sblock]

This is ing incredible dude.

How are you players liking this? I love how you've tied places with other bits of lore and other places.

 

[LostSoul]

It's been good!

The hexes are easy to ad-lib even if I haven't come up with much content for it. Giving it a level makes it easy - if there are wandering monsters, traps, or anything else I can use the different formulas to come up with appropriate challenge level.

Sometimes the players will wander across something on their way to a goal and get side-tracked. For example, the PCs were on their way to Fallcrest - I forget whyt. A Lair of Hobgoblins working with a Lair of Ettins had blocked the King's Road; the PCs decided to take the White River and avoid the Bloodreavers.

The Bloodreavers are the slavers mentioned in Thunderspire Labyrinth. A number of monster Lairs were linked together, and I decided to use that organization. The leader in the Nentir Vale is a robber baron (a human cavalier from MM2) named Tarkaan Atapun of the Nine-Fingered Harem. When the PCs killed his brother (Sosruko the Magnificent, an insane wizard trying to unlock the ritual Lich Transformation), that brought the Bloodreavers into the game.​

On the first night down the river they came across the village of Scragwall. A helpful rancher tied up their raft and offered his home for a place to rest; staying out after night wasn't safe, as the evil, acid-scarred wizard Eaner who ruled the town would let loose his demonic hyenas.

The PCs decided to kill the wizard. Once he was taken care of, they explored his tower and found a pair of young barbarian women being held as slaves. They came from the settlement of Redmarrow, as part of a deal the barbarians made with Eaner: a dragon laired beneath their town and Eaner had a potion that would keep it in a restless sleep. Eaner had a map of the dragon's lair, and I printed out a map from the blog Year of the Dungeon to hand out to the players.

The PCs decided to head to Redmarrow (on the northern edge of Lake Wintermist) out of a sense of indignation and greed (the handout probably helped). They ended up killing the dragon using a magic item and took its loot. Since they are terribly rich, Tarkaan Atapun realized that he had to do something about them and is currently laying siege to Winterhaven.

That's an example of how the connections are working in play.

 

[P1NBACK]

Sounds awesome.

Now, how are you using your prep to come up with these situations? And, are the players dictating the flow of things? How did they decide to take out the wizard? What if they had left the area and left the wizard in control?

You had a print-out, so clearly you knew they might encounter this area. Are you seeking feedback in prior sessions on where the PCs might go next? And, how does that impact your pre-session prep?

 

[LostSoul]

1. Prepping Situations.

I take what I rolled up using the hex crawl tables and try to make something interesting out of it. Scragwall started off like this:

13.06 RESOURCE - PLAINS - LEVEL 1
Settlement of 80 people based around a Ranch, Insane wizard

Links to Other Areas:
09.16, 06.02, 07.00, 07.19, 09.06, 12.07
Contents: Monster; Trick; Treasure; Something Strange​

This takes a while to prep - world building, I guess. I look at all the other areas, what's in them, if I've created anything there, and try to come up with something interesting.

The "contents" line helps give me some ideas. One of those links was to a gnoll lair, so I decided that this insane wizard made a deal with them for the ritual to summon cacklefiend hyenas (2 @ 300 XP = 600 XP, level 1 encounter).

It's structured creativity, I guess. Works well for me.

2. Player-driven

A quick run-down of how the game plays:

• We start with a social agreement that players will create characters driven to go adventuring. The DM reacts to choices the players make.
• The reward system supports characters who take risks by tying rewards to challenge level, not PC level.
• While adventuring, PCs deplete their resources (HP, Daily Powers) and gain their rewards (XP, GP, magic items).
• When the PC's resources are depleted they have to come back to town and interact with the setting in order to refresh them (martial characters carouse with NPCs; divine characters perform Liturgies for NPCs or secret, creepy Rites; wizards act like they have a bad case of OCD while memorizing spells; and warlocks do horrible, horrible things).
• These interactions show the consequences of their choices and continue to change the setting. NPC reactions change, PC influence in a town waxes or wanes, towns grow, and NPC Lairs gain or lose power.
• With their resources replenished, they set out for adventure again in a setting changed based on their choices.

The system creates a feedback loop that is supposed to increase the depth of the PC's connection to the setting each time we cycle through it. Since it's a challenge-focused game there are no guarantees that the setting will change in the way you want it to.

This won't work so well if you don't care about the setting. If you do, the more you drive the game, the more you'll see your choices reflected in the changing setting.

3. Encounters

The PCs killed Eaner by hiding out and waiting for the hyenas to be released, then ambushing them. It wasn't a very challenging fight, though I've changed Extended Rests so that every lost Healing Surge and spent Daily Power has some larger meaning.

I never pre-plan encounters that the PCs have to meet. I play the NPCs as realistically as I can, and if that means there's conflict, we start rolling dice to resolve it. I think one of the effects of this is that the players can come up with interesting and creative ways to get what they want. They rarely need to fight someone; NPCs are very rarely hostile.

The reason for all this prep is so the players can come up with plans and as DM I can react to them impartially. I think this opens up more strategic play on the part of the players in a way that encounters tailored to the PCs doesn't.

For example, just a few miles down the White River from Scragwall there's an ancient dam. If there was a monster Lair past that, the PCs could sabotage the dam and flood them out.

I hope that explains what I'm trying to do.

4. Consequences

If the PCs hadn't taken care of Eaner of Scragwall, nothing much would have happened: the setting was pretty stable, waiting for the PCs to come along.

That's not the case for monster "Lairs". It's the most prep-intensive bit of work I have to do after creating the setting. The NPCs take some actions and can grow in level over time. If the PCs interact with these NPCs it can really hurt them (or sometimes help, if the PCs lose).

For example, one wandering monster encounter was with some hobgoblins from a nearby lair. The PCs ended up killing the leader of the lair, which meant that the lair started dropping in level over the next few months. It took some time for it to stabilize.

In contrast the PCs haven't done much to upset the plans of the Robber Baron Atapun; his Lair has been growing steadily over the months.

5. Session Prep & Feedback

I've got a lot of hexes prepped so I don't need to do much work before each session. When they started down the White River there were some hexes that I hadn't yet detailed, so I knew I had to fill those in. The session where they killed Eaner ended just after the fight, so I had time to fill in his tower and print out the map.

Usually I don't do much prep except think about what the NPCs are up to. That can take up a while if the NPCs are up to something big; I need to know how many resources they have and what they do with them. Usually I don't need to do much, though. The siege of Winterhaven took some time to work out, around 4 hours? Normally I spend between 5 and 30 minutes for each 4-hour game.

The one big exception: dungeon crawling. I didn't start out with any dungeons detailed. I've asked the players to tell me if they plan to head into a dungeon so I can draw it up. They've gone dungeon delving in places when I haven't had anything detailed, so I was forced to rely on rolls on random tables. Experience has taught me that this is okay but should only be used as a last resort.

 

[P1NBACK]

Man. This sounds amazing, and super fun.

I love, love, love your idea about leveling bands of monsters and lairs. So, you take out the bugbear captain, his gang decreases in level by 3 for several weeks/months until a new captain takes his place and regroups them. Or, factions grow in level if the PCs do nothing to interact and impede them.

Very cool.

Have you thought about writing up procedures for this? Seems like it'd make an awesome PDF supplement for sandbox gaming. Lots of juicy ideas that could be fleshed out even moreso.