Best Published Setting for "Sandbox" Campaign?
jaerdaph
#UkraineStrong
All the suggestions so far are excellent, but I'm going to throw in Dungeon Crawl Classics #35: Gazetteer of the Known Realms from Goodman Games to add to the list.
Thunder Rift is perfect for your needs. It has one 32 page sourcebook, a bunch of adventures (which are best used as loose inspiration and rewritten if you use them at all, I don't really rate them)....and that's it.
The things which make it good as a sandbox is that it is extremely small (about 25 miles across, by about double that top to bottom), it has borders (the rift is surrounded by very high cliffs on all sides) and has all the classic D&D setting cliches present, which is all you need for a whole campaign. It was originally intended for levels 1-3 of BECMI, but it can easily support a campaign all the way up to high level play if you detail it in a sandbox style - there's a lot of exploration to do if you made every mile count.
Another suggestion is the Korinn Archipelago from N1 Treasure Hunt. It is a very small setting of many islands, so you can control the flow of the sandbox from island to island (e.g. this island challenges levels 4-6 etc.). It got dumped into the Forgotten Realms as part of the Moonshae Isles, but was originally supposed to be dumped anywhere you want, so whether you use it in the pre-4e realms or not is up to you. (I suspect 4E FR has turfed it, but 4E FR isn't FR for me anyway, so meh.)
The things which make it good as a sandbox is that it is extremely small (about 25 miles across, by about double that top to bottom), it has borders (the rift is surrounded by very high cliffs on all sides) and has all the classic D&D setting cliches present, which is all you need for a whole campaign. It was originally intended for levels 1-3 of BECMI, but it can easily support a campaign all the way up to high level play if you detail it in a sandbox style - there's a lot of exploration to do if you made every mile count.
Another suggestion is the Korinn Archipelago from N1 Treasure Hunt. It is a very small setting of many islands, so you can control the flow of the sandbox from island to island (e.g. this island challenges levels 4-6 etc.). It got dumped into the Forgotten Realms as part of the Moonshae Isles, but was originally supposed to be dumped anywhere you want, so whether you use it in the pre-4e realms or not is up to you. (I suspect 4E FR has turfed it, but 4E FR isn't FR for me anyway, so meh.)
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Vorpal Puppy
First Post
Ruins of Adventure, a 2nd edition D&D adventure based on the Pool of Radiance computer game that came out long, long ago. The plot is that hordes of monsters under a mysterious general conquered the city of Phlan 50 years ago. They still linger today, but they're disorganized and merchants who hope to use the city as a base for trade have gained a toehold there. The PCs show up and basically do whatever they want, using 'civilized Phlan' as a base. A sort of wild, wild west of fantasy.
The module itself is not exactly slickly produced, but it gives you everything you really need and the setting is my all-time favorite sandbox.
The module itself is not exactly slickly produced, but it gives you everything you really need and the setting is my all-time favorite sandbox.
