D&D General Worldbuilding considerations for a West Marches sandbox

[MattW]

As soon as I read the original post, I thought it could work with something like the original "Star Trek". Each adventure involves a different group of scouts, or diplomats, or spies, or commandos...

The concept of a mobile base could work with a low-tech and magical background. Perhaps the player's base is a large (and magical) sailing ship or a huge assemblage of rafts that drifts with the ocean currents; each adventure would involve a different island, or a salvage mission, or a fight with pirates.

Or, my personal favourite: A turtle island. Look at the castle! It's small enough that the players can get to know the inhabitants and large enough to get some urban adventures with some political problems...

 

[Lanefan]

Yep, can be a real challenge and requires two sets of notes with loads of NPCs. Basically, you're running multiple campaigns at once. Even the players get crossed up now and again about who they're playing. The tension leading up to their parties meeting was great fun, though. They kept narrowly missing one another and I was proud of how no one tried to force the issue. When they came together, they were on opposing factions. I fully expected each player to lose a PC in battle, but they found common ground very organically. Probably my favorite DM moment of all time.

Heh - neat trick to get them to end up potentially opposed to each other!

There's enough friends in common and past associations etc. between the main characters in my game that I don't think that'd ever happen; unless I got them to start an entirely new party independent of any existing characters and worked that in somehow. Probably could have got away with this in the early days, but that ship has now long since sailed.

 

[Lanefan]

Or, my personal favourite: A turtle island. Look at the castle! It's small enough that the players can get to know the inhabitants and large enough to get some urban adventures with some political problems...

Yowie - just think how many xp we'd get for killing that sucker!

 

[Norton]

Heh - neat trick to get them to end up potentially opposed to each other!

There's enough friends in common and past associations etc. between the main characters in my game that I don't think that'd ever happen; unless I got them to start an entirely new party independent of any existing characters and worked that in somehow. Probably could have got away with this in the early days, but that ship has now long since sailed.

I see what you're saying. Our "second" group were intended to be mercenaries for hire and nothing more. Just an excuse to get a run out on a night when we were missing two or more of the six. All I needed to do was connect their employers to something afoot that was at odds with the other group and it was on – eventually. I think it took almost 8 months and something like 20 sessions for them to finally meet! By then, they had been disillusioned by their circumstances and the original party had made plenty of money and was in need of some muscle themselves. We did create a brother situation between two of them, but to my players' credit they hated each other and it actually almost scuppered their alliance rather than facilitate it. Good times.

 

[Ancalagon]

I think you should all read about draakdeure

GLOG Setting/Campaign Format: Draakdeure

I like GLOG. It's simple, malleable, and has wacky classes. Vayra outlined its general principles in this very good post . I also don't pla...

fractalmeadows.blogspot.com

Basically, this is a great city ruled by a greedy dragon. The place is very bureaucratic, and there is a ministry of treasure acquisition. Adventurers work for this ministry. The city has these doors, magical portals, that will go somewhere else, where there are valuables. The adventurers go through the door, look for treasure, and come back. (the doors only last 12-24 hours, so there is a time limit).

It is a great way to do one shots, or serial one-shots, and is a great alternative to a west-march format Not only does it allow for multiple players, it also allows for multiple GMs

 

[77IM]

I ran a West Marches-style campaign back in 4E (there were only 5 players so we didn't get the full experience).

Regarding lore, there were four distinct eras in the region's history, with the oldest being a mythical era thousands of years ago, and the most recent being an influx of colonists and adventurers just 20 years ago. Absolutely everything related to one of those eras, and each era had its own secret story to uncover. For example, there were no +1 longswords; instead there were Imperial arming swords and Algrathian clan swords and so forth. This went double for dungeons, which always were created by someone for some purpose. This really reinforced the four eras, and linked them together (like an Imperial fort built atop older Algrathian ruins).

Much lore was also delivered via books written by the Imperial historian, Sanctimonius Loquacius. I'd write like a half-page summary of some legend or historical event, which would be full of holes ("No-one knows what became of warrior-queen Boacina") and full of clues ("The ancient kings, by tradition, had stands of yellow beech planted on their burial mounds"). Basically, in my West Marches, you couldn't so much as fight a band of goblin raiders without tripping over something linked to the lore of the region.