Building a Sandbox

[S'mon]

Personally, I am more interested in seeing examples of what people's sandbox notes look like.

Here's the web page of a setting I used for sandbox play, though the campaign ended up more constrained and less fun at higher levels.


http://www.geocities.com/s.t.newman/Borderlands.htm

Edit: Above about 8th level the campaign suffered from "incoherence", as they say at The Forge - the 3e rules didn't support the campaign; I believed the 3e DMG's claim that 3e supported play from 1st to 20th without modification and this resulted in PCs of effectively legendary/epic power in an essentially small town setting, feeling constrained and unhappy. The earlier 'Drake's Saga' campaign though was a classic example of Sandbox play. I had a map littered with adventuring locales from various White Dwarf, WotC and other scenarios, with varied terrains, cities and towns, and political intrigue.

 

[Reynard]

1) A region by region random encounter chart is your friend

I figure the best way to build these is by combining the terrain type and rarity of the monsters with a healthy dose of attempted versimilitude based on the region. For example, I might create a random encounter chart for the area that lies within the hunting range of the big red dragon in the area that encompasses multiple terrain types and reflects the fact that there is a single apex predator in the area. Or, if I want a "haunted forest" the chart needs to represent that, not necessarily what creatures are typed for woods terrain.

Also, I like the idea of doin more than just determing creature types and probabilities. it is more work, but adding actual encounters -- mini adventures almost -- to the random encounter chart will make it so that there's always the possibility of cool stuff to do even if the PCs aren't feeling particularly self motivated.

2) Load up on some of the little mini-adventures out there, be they mini-modules or locales published in Dragon or some other magazine.

I have "country sites" for 2E still but not too many other adventure supplements. Anyone have good suggestions for these kinds of things. It is particularly helpful if they are either vailable as PDFs or cheap on ebay/troll and toad/noble knight.

 

[S'mon]

II have "country sites" for 2E still but not too many other adventure supplements. Anyone have good suggestions for these kinds of things. It is particularly helpful if they are either vailable as PDFs or cheap on ebay/troll and toad/noble knight.

TSR: Book of Lairs and Book of Lairs II are both good, if you use a third of the mini-adventures in each you'll have got more than you money's worth.
Judges Guild Book of Treasure Maps (I, II & III I think) are quite good also, but have far fewer scenarios. Best of White Dwarf Scenarios I & II are also good, I better than II I think. BOWDS III has the excellent Irillian scenario, but it's enormous, around 32 pages.

 

[Reynard]

TSR: Book of Lairs and Book of Lairs II are both good, if you use a third of the mini-adventures in each you'll have got more than you money's worth.
Judges Guild Book of Treasure Maps (I, II & III I think) are quite good also, but have far fewer scenarios. Best of White Dwarf Scenarios I & II are also good, I better than II I think. BOWDS III has the excellent Irillian scenario, but it's enormous, around 32 pages.

I totally forgot I bought the PDF of BoL already. Is BoL 2 just as good?

I kind of like the idea of building the sandbox almost entirely of pre-engineered pieces and spending my time and energy doing the actual building -- kinda like legos!

 

[Mystaros]

Here's the web page of a setting I used for sandbox play...

That's a mighty fine campaign setting S'mon! Awesome!

 

[S'mon]

I totally forgot I bought the PDF of BoL already. Is BoL 2 just as good?

I kind of like the idea of building the sandbox almost entirely of pre-engineered pieces and spending my time and energy doing the actual building -- kinda like legos!

Yeah - I sold off my copies years ago after playing through pretty much all the encounters, but AIR #2 is if anything slightly better than #1, I think it had more varied authorship. I definitely favour the lego approach myself, I'm no good at creating detailed scenarios before play starts.

 

[S'mon]

That's a mighty fine campaign setting S'mon! Awesome!

Thanks James, you do some pretty good work yourself.

That setting - the Borderlands Campaign - grew out of a single map I'd done many years before with maybe half a dozen White Dwarf and other 1e AD&D scenarios on it, to which was added Troll Lords' Lost City of Gaxmoor when I started running 3e, this campaign starting at ca 4th or so. It was a good set-up for low to mid level play, but I wasn't very happy with how the campaign went when I started running 3e beyond about 10th level. Everything started feeling sort of tight, constrained, and heavy going. We played up to about 17th level, but the best times were definitely in the 4-10 range.

Learning from that, my next campaign was Necromancer's Lost City of Barakus, designed from the start to stay in single-figures, aided by Barakus' advocated 1/2 XP rate. My Barakus campaign page is here:
http://www.geocities.com/s.t.newman/barakus.htm
That started at 1st and went up to 8th/9th in 3e, then we converted over to C&C.

And my current game using C&C takes place in the same setting, the Yahoogroup is here (join group required):
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Endhome/

The Arr-Kelaan free hex-mapping software has been a real godsend.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

I love sandbox-style play. One of the things I would recommend is making sure that the setting progresses-- a sandbox is much more fun if there are lots of plots and events going on that the PCs can either get involved with or not, as they see fit. They can keep encountering rumors, hearing about events elsewhere, and so forth. It both adds to the versimilitude and gives them more ties. Plus, it means that they can make strategic choices with consequences: which of these threats are a bigger problem now? Or do we want to ignore them both to pursue our own goals?

Good luck and have fun!

 

[Dan Bell]

Reynard,

Given how much I dislike making maps, I'll probably just crib from other sources, and even use pre-statted dungeons from adventures as exiting locations. After all, it isn't much of a sandbox if there's no where to go.

Free free to ues any/all of the Harn maps fround in the free downlaods on http://www.lythia.com/
This site is also good for villages: http://www.aedificium.org/

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another thing you can do when your players are wandering where you haven't planned for...

Run them through the planned adventure, but as something they're imagining (assuming they don't have foreknowledge of what that adventure was supposed to be).

What I mean is that you use a Deus Ex Machina of sorts- the adventure you had planned is run but as a "dream" or hallucination. This can be done only rarely, depending on your setup- otherwise your players will get tired of your refrain "It was all in your heads!"

Method 1) Creatures from the Plane of Dreams attack the party in their sleep, initiating the adventure in order to feed on the party's "fear"... Loss of HP is "real" only in the dream- consider it submission otherwise- unless the PC dies. Then use the "death by massive damage rule" and have them save or die (or go into a coma or whatever).

Method 2) Spores from a plant from the Far Realms induce hallucinations in the party while immobilizing them. 1/10th of the damage in the hallucination is real damage (You may have seen this in an X-Files episode called "Field Trip.")

Method 3) A powerful being creates an interactive illusion (the planned adventure) in order to entertain itself. Damage taken seems real, but the being prevents any permanent death. (This one popped up on at least 2 different Star Trek series, more if you count the Holodecks.)

IF you use one of these or a similar method, be sure to reward REAL XP for the imaginary events!