Zardnaar
Legend
Over the years I have played a little bit of D&D starting way back in 1993 when I was 15. 37 now. For most of that time I have probably used Dungeon Magazine the most and now the equivalent is probably the Quests of Doom adventures from Necromancer games. Outside of Dungeon I generally do not buy adventures apart form the occasional one such as The Night Below, Labyrinth of Madness, or City of the Spider Queen. I do by small PDF ones especially in 2007-2012 or so where I spent almost nothing on D&D.
When I criticize a published adventure for being to railroaded I normally mean that the adventure is very linear, not it is railroaded in the sense that you have the choice to play it or not. Usually rail roaded adventures are plot heavy and have a series of scenes that more or less have to be played in order and you more or less want to stick to the map. Adventure Path type adventures are prime examples although any adventure is rail roaded to some extent. An adventure like Isle of Dread or Kingmaker is more of a sandbox than say HotDQ. A railroaded adventure is not automatically bad (I like The Savage Tide), but some of them are turkeys but might be salvaged with DM work (HotDQ). Not all sand box or smaller adventures are automatically good either.
Now my world. Over the years I have made a rough campaign setting in my head although at times I have done things like design a Pantheon, draw maps, write out a history of the world etc. I have been recycling it since about 1998 although I often change things a bit as the players have changed over the years. Some things have remained the same though.
Z's Sandbox Elements
1. Major themres are the lost past, exploration, naval/water, colonies. Nations generally do not exist except maybe as one or two smaller nations.
2. Late medieval or renaissance levels of technology with lost magitech/modern technology in small doses.
3. Elves are not really nice as such. Some are but the Elven Imperium is in an interregnum with various Elven houses squabbling for influence. Halflings tend to be feral/barbaric (think steppe nomads type), Dwarves are reclusive. Most of the Elven army is mercneary. Roughly based on the East India Company/Carthage.
4. Usually a human nations of knights recently independent from the Elves. Current oneis the Heldannic Knights.
5. City state political system for the most part.
6. Religion is not usually a major theme. I have used the Greyhawk and homebrew pantheons, currently using FR Pantheon.
7. Usually a lost empire/civilization plays a role. There might be one dead for a few hundred years (Rome) and the ancients from 3000 years ago (Atlantis/Magitech equivalent).
8. There is no good and evil as such but a lot of shades of grey. Not all Elven houses are evil, not all of the Human Knights are good.
9. Slavery exists and bad things happen to good people. This can be as arbitrary as a ruler ordering your execution for reasonably mundane offences (or no offence). Partly based on real life as a King of France executed his sisters lover for insulting the King and there have been rulers like Tamerlane, Vlad the Impaler etc. Nazis may have been evil but they were somewhat rational. Not all of my NPCs are rational.
10. Civilization exists in a post imperial collapse (2 empires falling). Technology has been retained, the political system has collapsed.
In my current campaign the PCs are level 9. There is no BBEG as such, I have a rough idea what the campaign is about but the PCs can do what they like. They can get on a boat and sail to another continent for all I care and avoid the minimal metaplot I have put in. Sometimes I prep multiple adventures and depending on where the PCs go it depends on what one I run, or I also ad hoc it as I go along. I often plan a series of encounters which may or may not happen. I ignore the encounter rules in the DMG. Some are very easy or not intended as combat encounters, sometimes PCs attack into overwhelming force and pull it off. Other encounters are fixed though so the PCs will encounter them no matter where they go unless they take extraordinary precautions to avoid them. I do not over do that though as even if I am rarely rail roading something for whatever reason I like the PCs to have illusion of free will. Normally it is repercussions from some group they have annoyed such as assassins dispatched to kill them.
I'm not a brutal DM though as I rarely try to kill PCs. I might attack them when they are unconscious on the ground and in 5E critical hits can kill them. I do run a bit of a hard luck game. I might fudge the dice if I screw up and allow the PCs to survive, I do not fudge the dice if they do something stupid. Some NPCs will go out of their way to kill them though so if they are on the ground on 0hp they will get attacked. Rarely NPCs will attack them at night while they are sleeping or try and lure off individual PCs in town in an effort to split the party up. This is more of the part of the bad things happen to nice people thing. I try not to over do it though but it is more to make the PCs realize there are repercussions to their actions, they can't take short and loing rests for granted and if they nova off for 5 minute work days it can back fire on them.
For example some of the spellcasters like dumping all of their spells early on and then long resting in a safe town. That is fine but for example but I might respond by making the next days encounters a lot tougher as a dungeon is on alert or a key NPC might be sacrificed or they miss out on treasure as a boat leaves port or a dungeons inhabitants flee taking the loot with them. Dumb creature might stand and fight, things like Drow will leave and get reinforcements. PCs can do what they want and play how they want the world might have repercussions (CN PCs tend to hate this). Bad things can happen to nice people in my games, worse things happen to bad people if the PCs are jackasses to the NPCs.
When I criticize a published adventure for being to railroaded I normally mean that the adventure is very linear, not it is railroaded in the sense that you have the choice to play it or not. Usually rail roaded adventures are plot heavy and have a series of scenes that more or less have to be played in order and you more or less want to stick to the map. Adventure Path type adventures are prime examples although any adventure is rail roaded to some extent. An adventure like Isle of Dread or Kingmaker is more of a sandbox than say HotDQ. A railroaded adventure is not automatically bad (I like The Savage Tide), but some of them are turkeys but might be salvaged with DM work (HotDQ). Not all sand box or smaller adventures are automatically good either.
Now my world. Over the years I have made a rough campaign setting in my head although at times I have done things like design a Pantheon, draw maps, write out a history of the world etc. I have been recycling it since about 1998 although I often change things a bit as the players have changed over the years. Some things have remained the same though.
Z's Sandbox Elements
1. Major themres are the lost past, exploration, naval/water, colonies. Nations generally do not exist except maybe as one or two smaller nations.
2. Late medieval or renaissance levels of technology with lost magitech/modern technology in small doses.
3. Elves are not really nice as such. Some are but the Elven Imperium is in an interregnum with various Elven houses squabbling for influence. Halflings tend to be feral/barbaric (think steppe nomads type), Dwarves are reclusive. Most of the Elven army is mercneary. Roughly based on the East India Company/Carthage.
4. Usually a human nations of knights recently independent from the Elves. Current oneis the Heldannic Knights.
5. City state political system for the most part.
6. Religion is not usually a major theme. I have used the Greyhawk and homebrew pantheons, currently using FR Pantheon.
7. Usually a lost empire/civilization plays a role. There might be one dead for a few hundred years (Rome) and the ancients from 3000 years ago (Atlantis/Magitech equivalent).
8. There is no good and evil as such but a lot of shades of grey. Not all Elven houses are evil, not all of the Human Knights are good.
9. Slavery exists and bad things happen to good people. This can be as arbitrary as a ruler ordering your execution for reasonably mundane offences (or no offence). Partly based on real life as a King of France executed his sisters lover for insulting the King and there have been rulers like Tamerlane, Vlad the Impaler etc. Nazis may have been evil but they were somewhat rational. Not all of my NPCs are rational.
10. Civilization exists in a post imperial collapse (2 empires falling). Technology has been retained, the political system has collapsed.
In my current campaign the PCs are level 9. There is no BBEG as such, I have a rough idea what the campaign is about but the PCs can do what they like. They can get on a boat and sail to another continent for all I care and avoid the minimal metaplot I have put in. Sometimes I prep multiple adventures and depending on where the PCs go it depends on what one I run, or I also ad hoc it as I go along. I often plan a series of encounters which may or may not happen. I ignore the encounter rules in the DMG. Some are very easy or not intended as combat encounters, sometimes PCs attack into overwhelming force and pull it off. Other encounters are fixed though so the PCs will encounter them no matter where they go unless they take extraordinary precautions to avoid them. I do not over do that though as even if I am rarely rail roading something for whatever reason I like the PCs to have illusion of free will. Normally it is repercussions from some group they have annoyed such as assassins dispatched to kill them.
I'm not a brutal DM though as I rarely try to kill PCs. I might attack them when they are unconscious on the ground and in 5E critical hits can kill them. I do run a bit of a hard luck game. I might fudge the dice if I screw up and allow the PCs to survive, I do not fudge the dice if they do something stupid. Some NPCs will go out of their way to kill them though so if they are on the ground on 0hp they will get attacked. Rarely NPCs will attack them at night while they are sleeping or try and lure off individual PCs in town in an effort to split the party up. This is more of the part of the bad things happen to nice people thing. I try not to over do it though but it is more to make the PCs realize there are repercussions to their actions, they can't take short and loing rests for granted and if they nova off for 5 minute work days it can back fire on them.
For example some of the spellcasters like dumping all of their spells early on and then long resting in a safe town. That is fine but for example but I might respond by making the next days encounters a lot tougher as a dungeon is on alert or a key NPC might be sacrificed or they miss out on treasure as a boat leaves port or a dungeons inhabitants flee taking the loot with them. Dumb creature might stand and fight, things like Drow will leave and get reinforcements. PCs can do what they want and play how they want the world might have repercussions (CN PCs tend to hate this). Bad things can happen to nice people in my games, worse things happen to bad people if the PCs are jackasses to the NPCs.
Last edited:
