How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox vs. Sandbox Generator

[Reynard]

One of the books mentioned by OP is actually these blog posts reformatted with art in a book form. The blog author did a Kickstarter for it last year. It’s a very good resource.

That explains why it struck me the way it did.

 

[overgeeked]

I also want to add that WWN’s process relies on you to do a lot of decision-making. There are generators for your civilizations, but you’ll still be doing most of the map design yourself. I went through the process and have been using the map in my current campaign (running my homebrew system). I posted a copy of the map in the WWN thread here in post #27. Posts #12 and #16 have some of my thoughts on using the procedure.

Yeah. That’s why I use Azgaar’s, some other generator, or a pre-existing map. There are great hexmap-making programs out there.

 

[kenada]

There are great hexmap-making programs out there.

Any suggestions? I tried a bunch (Hexographer, Worldographer, Hex Kit, Tiled) and found them all them lacking in various ways. That’s why I ended up doing my map in Campaign Cartographer. It was more work (and CC really is hard to use), but I wanted more than just symbols on a hex grid.

At some point, I need to do a revision of my setting. I took WWN’s suggestion not to worry too much about your world map a little too literally. While the map I created is plenty big enough (that one I posted is just a subset of it), it feels out of context without the wider geography. I also think it crams too many civilizations into one space. The trick will be not invalidating the current campaign because I want its events to carry forward (and I may end up retrofitting it to the current campaign because we’ve played ~40 sessions with many, many more sessions to go before the end).

 

[overgeeked]

Any suggestions? I tried a bunch (Hexographer, Worldographer, Hex Kit, Tiled) and found them all them lacking in various ways. That’s why I ended up doing my map in Campaign Cartographer. It was more work (and CC really is hard to use), but I wanted more than just symbols on a hex grid.

At some point, I need to do a revision of my setting. I took WWN’s suggestion not to worry too much about your world map a little too literally. While the map I created is plenty big enough (that one I posted is just a subset of it), it feels out of context without the wider geography. I also think it crams too many civilizations into one space. The trick will be not invalidating the current campaign because I want its events to carry forward (and I may end up retrofitting it to the current campaign because we’ve played ~40 sessions with many, many more sessions to go before the end).

You just named all the ones I know. I’m not terrible with Photoshop so I lay a hex grid over whatever monstrosity I get from Azgaar’s (or similar) and call it a day. Drop dots on the city and town hexes. Keep notes in the hex key. My system is all pretty basic and lazy.

 

[robertsconley]

Does anyone have experience with each of these books? How do they compare? Are they generic or do they tend to create specific setting types?

DriveThruRPG

preview.drivethrurpg.com

DriveThruRPG

preview.drivethrurpg.com

My How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox is a walkthrough and discussion of it steps using the creation of the Isle of Pyade setting as an example. The Sandbox Generator is a set of useful tools to generate a map procedurally, its locales, and the details of the locales and what could be encountered.

When I wrote my original set of blog posts, I thought about going this route. However, in 2009, I realized there are a lot of great books of random tables out there, including some like the Sandbox Generator, which tied them together into a nice procedural setup.

But there is not a lot that discusses why you would use a given element over another. There is not a lot that coaches the reader through the process with a worked-out example that is ready to use at the end of it. So, it is from this viewpoint that I wrote my original posts, and I reinforced this when I re-edited them into the How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox book. I do have some tools and procedural material but the bulk of the book is about discussing the ins and outs of making a fantasy sandbox setting.

So my recommendation is to get both. Read my book (or posts) to get a high level view of what you should be considering. Use Sandbox Generator as a set of useful tools to create ideas and fleshing out the details. Or use some of the other recommendations in this thread.

A review of How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox just came out on Grognardia.

One of the books mentioned by OP is actually these blog posts reformatted with art in a book form. The blog author did a Kickstarter for it last year. It’s a very good resource.

Thanks for the shout out and I appreciate the compliment.

 

[Thondor]

I enjoyed reading some of @robertsconley blog posts and I'm pretty tempted to pick up the book!

Most recently I have considered running the "underdark" style hexcrawls in AA#23 Down the Shadowvein and it's sequel AA#24 The Mouth of the Shadowvein because of the somewhat linear river and surrounding routes it's a little more narrow than a full hexcrawl.

If I wanted to run a hexcrawl tonight -- I'd grab Questcrawl (UK site here). The basic premise there is you layout a full deck of playing cards, which is your map of a large island and then flip them over as you explore. It has a very simple system included and is GMless. You could supplant that system pretty easily and make small revisions to the what you find with different cards.
(Suits are different terrain types, aces and king of hearts are mountains-king being the dwarf kingdom, different values present different dangers etc.)
It has an interesting idea that each player is an expert in a particular terrain type.