Mod+ Sandbox Discussion & Resource Thread II

[Lofgeornost]

Almost all of this I handle just with my system for clues. A "Clue" is anything that points towards a mystery, gives background on it, or implies the solution. I divide clues into three types :

Minor Clues are anything that points the characters in a specific direction. These are strewn throughout the game, and it's up to the characers dicide which ones they want to follow up on or place signifigance in. In a way, these are a bit like hooks, bthey just sorta give a taste that "something isn't right" or lead to one significant location/person.
Major Clues are the puzzle pieces. The intensity of any given Mystery is pretty much rated in how many Major Clues are needed to solve it. 3-5 usually means it can be solved i a single game session. 5+ tend to be long-term ongoing mysteries of the setting.
Bonus Clues are basically ones that let the character's "skip steps" in solving the Mystery - they are like 2 or more Major Clues in one, or provide some other benefit in regards to the solution (reveal a creature's major weakness, magic item, etc.)

So, here is my trick - I don't decide ahead of time where the clues are. The players drive the investigation, it's their success that decides what clues they find. Sometimes they can find clues to completely unrelated mysteries. Sometimes it's a dead end. But it's always based on the character's actions, not on a preset A-to-B-to-C line.

I like that threefold division; it's a neat way to conceptualize the situation.

Another things that matters for this is what I think of as the nature of the mystery. Some are like TV police procedurals--once you have the relevant pieces of information, you basically know whodunnit (or whatever). There isn't a lot of reasoning involved. Others are more like difficult mystery novels (or puzzles): you can be given all the clues, even handed them on a silver platter, and still not be able to solve the mystery without a lot of careful thinking. In mysteries like that, the key question usually isn't 'did I find the right information' but 'can I figure out from this set of data what the answer must be.'

I actually enjoy the second type of mystery more, but for gaming the first kind usually works better in my experience, unless you have players who are really into solving that sort of puzzle.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, sometimes the players just don't pick up what you're putting down. I played in a two-shot with one of my oldest gaming friends when he was up here over Christmas and this very thing happened. He'd themed a whole bunch of clues and strange happenings around the lyrics to King of Pain by the Police, and in the finale you had to address the undead king by his name to finish things. Well, I fuckin' missed the boat there, let me tell you. I even said at one point "this reminds me of the lyrics to a song...". What a farce.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's also a choice that says a lot about the setting and genre. In Traveller, it fits the game to have different engineering specialties for working on a jump drive vs. working on the ship's power system. In a Star Wars RPG, you want a game where a farm boy can comfortably hop onto any vehicle, whether it is speeder bike or a X-Wing fighter, and handle it competently.

Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu both have very large skill lists, but that also fits the genre. The academic tone of the genre calls for characters with very specific skills.

I read a blog or article (I forget which one) and the writer commented that "The skill list is one of the things that defines what your game is about" which I think is pretty accurate, and which I don't know if I'd ever heard it stated in such a way before. That list is saying "here's what you can do in this game", so what skills are included, which are specific versus broad, all of that matters.

I prefer to lump as much into one skill as is reasonably possible, myself, but I totally agree with you that the genre and tone of the setting matter a lot with this.

It also helps to view the mysteries as ways of uncovering more complexity, not paths that lead to clear-cut solutions. The players may uncover the truth behind the events twenty years ago that resulted in the mayor and the owner of the newspaper hating each other, but that's not an end-point. It just gives them an opportunity to get involved in the conflict between them.

I kind of struggle to maintain a sandbox approach with mysteries. Call of Cthulhu and similar games to me just lend themselves to the linear format. Yes, they can be reworked as you describe here, or as under_score described his take on Arkham. But most mystery style scenarios I find, are pretty linear.

I ran a short campaign recently where the PCs were investigators/cops assembled for a specific investigation. Because I specifically didn't want the game to play in a linear way, I just gave them the targets outright, very early in the investigation they knew who they were after. Then it became about building a case.....and that was a much easier thing to sandbox.

 

[Brock Savage]

I was hoping there would be more people sharing how they run their own sandboxes along with helpful tips etc. I feel like the debate over definitions and unlikely theoretical situations is overshadowing useful info that can be used at the table.

I often will just find a location with a similar climate to the one I'm working with from the real world and use historical weather for it. Combined with good time keeping with a calendar and you can just line it up year round. When I played my last PF game, the weather around Sandpoint was based on Portland iirc.

Nice, this is what I do. I don't deep dive into the minutiae of weather and biomes but do just enough work to bring satisfying verisimilitude. Also, my needs change from game to game. One my games is focused around a capitol city so it was easy to dial down on the weather and climate of Saint Petersburg and marry it to the setting's calendar. My current game is a hexcrawl so I have to dial back to a big picture view that is roughly analogous to West Africa but the tradeoff is less attention to detail.

I also used Fantasy Calendar for timekeeping, it is super convenient and easy to share with your group.

Hey thanks Norton and @robertsconley this is going to be so helpful for my Carcosa game! I better be careful because I can get lost in a rabbit hole tinkering around with this.

 

[Lofgeornost]

II kind of struggle to maintain a sandbox approach with mysteries. Call of Cthulhu and similar games to me just lend themselves to the linear format. Yes, they can be reworked as you describe here, or as under_score described his take on Arkham. But most mystery style scenarios I find, are pretty linear.

I ran a short campaign recently where the PCs were investigators/cops assembled for a specific investigation. Because I specifically didn't want the game to play in a linear way, I just gave them the targets outright, very early in the investigation they knew who they were after. Then it became about building a case.....and that was a much easier thing to sandbox.

That's a great idea; the Columbo approach, basically.

 

[ffilz]

That been fixed in this product from Kelestia. The weather chapter (page 217) even explains how to make location specific charts. Like this for the Dwarven realm of Azadmere located in the mountains of Harn.

Yeah it pricey ($35 for the PDF) but to be fair it is THE overview of the area of the world corresponding to Europe. There is a lot of interesting details other than the weather that useful for a fantasy medieval setting.

Wow! I'm not sure I can justify the 35 bucks but that does look like maybe the first comprehensive weather system I've seen for an RPG...

 

[robertsconley]

I didn't use the weather part of it because I didn't trust how "real" it would feel. Which was why I went with historical weather data of real life locations instead.

I prefer the Harn Weather Charts in that regard. The way the charts are put together the weather changes flow quite nicely.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So, here is my trick - I don't decide ahead of time where the clues are. The players drive the investigation, it's their success that decides what clues they find. Sometimes they can find clues to completely unrelated mysteries. Sometimes it's a dead end. But it's always based on the character's actions, not on a preset A-to-B-to-C line.

So this was a great post overall, but this last bit caught me a bit by surprise. Not because it's a bad approach or anything like that....very much the opposite in my opinion. I think it's a great way to handle mysteries and similar scenarios. But it doesn't exactly fit the idea of a living world....it seems more "narrative". And just based on your past posts, I would've thought this kind of approach wouldn't appeal to you.

Is it something about the nature of mysteries that you think makes this approach okay? Or do you not see it that way?

 

[BedrockBrendan]

That been fixed in this product from Kelestia. The weather chapter (page 217) even explains how to make location specific charts. Like this for the Dwarven realm of Azadmere located in the mountains of Harn.

View attachment 28338



Venarive

Venârivè: Northwestern Lýthia | Kelestia.com

Yeah it pricey ($35 for the PDF) but to be fair it is THE overview of the area of the world corresponding to Europe. There is a lot of interesting details other than the weather that useful for a fantasy medieval setting.

I really need to incorporate weather into my campaigns better (it has such a profound effect on daily life). Really like this chart.

On thing I do like to forecast is events and movements. I have a calendar of the year ahead (or years ahead) and mark important events down likely to occur---obviously events in the campaign could change them). I also have tables for things like developments in the campaign over time. This is one set I use:

 

[robertsconley]

Wow! I'm not sure I can justify the 35 bucks but that does look like maybe the first comprehensive weather system I've seen for an RPG...

Here is the ToC to see if it would be further utility. Remember the whole line is a grounded medieval setting setting. Very easy to adapt to most FRPG and easy to add more fantasy if you like a more fantastic take. Everything outside of the history and Chronology I have used parts of for my Majestic Wilderlands and Majestic Fantasy Realms.

 

[TristramEvans]

So this was a great post overall, but this last bit caught me a bit by surprise. Not because it's a bad approach or anything like that....very much the opposite in my opinion. I think it's a great way to handle mysteries and similar scenarios. But it doesn't exactly fit the idea of a living world....it seems more "narrative". And just based on your past posts, I would've thought this kind of approach wouldn't appeal to you.

Is it something about the nature of mysteries that you think makes this approach okay? Or do you not see it that way?

I see it more like using a random chart - I , as the GM, don't know the answer ahead of time. The players are leading the investigation, not me.

Edit: I guess I should also clarify, my objection to "Narrative' game elements is entirely player-facing, meaning, when I'm a player, I want a DIC Immersive experience, and as a GM I see a big part of my role as providing that opportunity for my players. But I am not, when I am GMing, immersed. I'm not even opposed to (gasp) a little bit of Illusionism, depending on the situation, which I know is frowned upon by some posters here.

The "living world" comes from the NPCs, I am following their plots and pathways behind the scenes while the game goes on. That part of the game is dynamic, mysteries are static, if that makes any sense.

 

[robertsconley]

For example the section on Law give you the basic background before launching into specific. Which is pretty much how many of the chapters are organized.

 

[TristramEvans]

I've always wanted to delve into Harn, but that is a rabbithole I think once headed down, would swallow my time and bank account like nothing else (except maybe Warhammer).

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I've always wanted to delve into Harn, but that is a rabbithole I think once headed down, would swallow my time and bank account like nothing else (except maybe Warhammer).

Delve, delve, delve. You don't have to buy the whole setting. I was turned onto the setting by my friend in the late 2000s. Rob Conley can suggest a good book if you want to get a sense of what it is all about. But I didn't go crazy, I just bought a boxed set and a couple of expansions. The big thing that I think is worth it, whether you get into Harn or not is to check out the module 100 Bushels of Rye. It definitely won't appeal to everyone, but my friend (Bill) sold me on the setting by lending me the module (and for me it hit all the right buttons and it also showed how to have a cool adventure around a lot of relatively mundane features----the whole thing isn't mundane, it just makes great use of the mundane, and feels very grounded to me). If you like Microhistory at all, this is a good setting for you. It deals with those kinds of ground level details

 

[robertsconley]

I've always wanted to delve into Harn, but that is a rabbithole I think once headed down, would swallow my time and bank account like nothing else (except maybe Warhammer).

Yeah but I find it to be worth it and one major reason is that it been so consistent for decades. There been a couple of revision to the format but nearly always for the better. The only real partial misfile is a brief d20 phase but that only added material didn't substitute anything or change anything. For example Evael the Elven Kingdom has some d20 stuff.

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Columbia Games is a maker of board and role-playing games including Hârn and a variety of games, mostly wargames (Wizard Kings and various historical and quasi-historical games) using blocks instead of the more conventional chits. The company is based in Blaine, Washington; it is run by founder...

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But the good news is that Harn has a helluva of fan community.

Lýthia.com

Your Gateway to HârnWorld

www.lythia.com

And if you want that Harn goodness without the $$$ look through the files there.
I would recommend starting with the Harn Pottage series. It useful and has a variety of articles representative of the line. Including entire town.

Harn Pottage – Lýthia.com

A series of articles containing locations, adventures and other material based in HârnWorld, but usable in any fantasy role playing system.

www.lythia.com

For those who more into characters I recommend Friends, Foes, and Followers

Friends, Foes & Followers – Lýthia.com

A series of NPC descriptions using the HârnMaster rule system.

www.lythia.com

For those who want to see how deep the rabbit hole can go I recommend The Upper Eastside or the Eastside.

Eastside City Block

Eastside City Block

A complete city block of the city of Tashal.

www.lythia.com

Upper Eastside

Tashal: Upper East Side

Upper eastside city block in Tashal.

www.lythia.com

Again if you running anything remotely like Dungeons & Dragon all this material is incredibly useful as a source of character, locales, and idea for the more ground aspect of the campaign.

Finally if you need a bunch of small village and manor maps There is the many manors series. Just maps tho.

Many Manors – Lýthia.com

A series of manor maps in the usual style. The maps do not have any accompanying text, leave the GM free to use them wherever they feel is appropriate.

www.lythia.com

If you want to see what medieval life is like in the countryside. Check out the Nelafyn Hundred series.

Nelafayn Hundred

The Nelafayn Hundred Project is a volunteer web effort to develop fanon for HârnWorld (created by N. Robin Crossby and published by Columbia Games Inc.) Nelafayn’s rich background provides GMs, pla…

www.lythia.com

 

[TristramEvans]

LOL, I see you guys have seriously underestimated my OCD collecting impulse.

I can't just "dip my toes", I'm in the deep end. For example, in the late 90s I got out of Battle Tech and sold all of my stuff for that game. A few years ago (I think just around the time The Pub was starting up) I decided to get back into it...

 

[robertsconley]

Delve, delve, delve. You don't have to buy the whole setting. I was turned onto the setting by my friend in the late 2000s. Rob Conley can suggest a good book if you want to get a sense of what it is all about. But I didn't go crazy, I just bought a boxed set and a couple of expansions. The big thing that I think is worth it, whether you get into Harn or not is to check out the module 100 Bushels of Rye. It definitely won't appeal to everyone, but my friend (Bill) sold me on the setting by lending me the module (and for me it hit all the right buttons and it also showed how to have a cool adventure around a lot of relatively mundane features----the whole thing isn't mundane, it just makes great use of the mundane, and feels very grounded to me). If you like Microhistory at all, this is a good setting for you. It deals with those kinds of ground level details

The Earl's Progress another interesting slice of life adventure and free.

The Earl’s Progress

This adventure follows the progress of the reclusive Earl of Vemion, Sir Declaen Caldeth, from his home in Minarsas across the entire Kingdom of Kaldor.

www.lythia.com

Then there is Shower of Silver

A Shower of Silver

A companion adventure to the Jedes module, A Shower of Silver is suitable for convention gaming or an introduction to roleplaying in HârnWorld.

www.lythia.com

On the paid side and given the discussion on mysteries.

There is On the Edge

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And it's companion location article Guthe Bridge

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Columbia Games is a maker of board and role-playing games including Hârn and a variety of games, mostly wargames (Wizard Kings and various historical and quasi-historical games) using blocks instead of the more conventional chits. The company is based in Blaine, Washington; it is run by founder...

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And it's companion trail article, the Silver Way

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Columbia Games is a maker of board and role-playing games including Hârn and a variety of games, mostly wargames (Wizard Kings and various historical and quasi-historical games) using blocks instead of the more conventional chits. The company is based in Blaine, Washington; it is run by founder...

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[robertsconley]

LOL, I see you guys have seriously underestimated my OCD collecting impulse.

I can't just "dip my toes", I'm in the deep end. For example, in the late 90s I got out of Battle Tech and sold all of my stuff for that game. A few years ago I decided to get back into it...

Battletech tournaments were the bread and butter means of fundraising when I was President of my college gaming club in the middle 80s.

 

[Fenris-77]

Battletech tournaments were the bread and butter means of fundraising when I was President of my college gaming club in the middle 80s.

Run, run, run, jump, headshot from the rear with an AC20 Ultra. That's how I roll.

 

[robertsconley]

So tying this back to sandbox campaign. What makes Harn products so good for me is that the provide a ready source of material that roughly compatible with my setting that I can use for doing things on the fly or when my prep time is limited.

This is touched on by Douglas Cole when they entered the town of Tain which was repurposed from Harn's Olokand.

Majestic Wilderlands - Look Squirrel/We Shot the Sheriff - Gaming Ballistic

We start off east of the bridge entering the city, and observe from a half-mile away that there’s a knight and three yeoman interrogating those who wish to cross. Based on our familiarity with this area, we know there’s a manor nearby – actually, lots of them. This is thanks to a poor set of...

gamingballistic.com

I can do it just look at my Scourge of the Demon Wolf. But not week in and week out.

 

[robertsconley]

Run, run, run, jump, headshot from the rear with an AC20 Ultra. That's how I roll.

My favorite was a medium mech called the Wolverine. It had max jump jets and I reworked it to eliminate the heat issue the original had. So I could jump all the time and fire all my weapons with minimal heat gain.

 

[Fenris-77]

I have a lot of stuff that fits the roughly compatible bill, for exactly the same reason. It's great boon for a sandbox GM to have a whole ton of sources to pull from. either on the fly or as a base for more focused design work.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Presumably, then, one of the possible routes into being a sandbox DM would simply be to take one of these very detailed existing settings and use it more-or-less as written. Prep time then largely becomes time spent reading the materials, rather than time spent dreaming stuff up on your own.

 

[Fenris-77]

My RPG Sourcebook file folder on my laptop is currently 43.9 GB and has more than 3000 files in it (character sheets and whatnot are in a separate folder). I'm also a little OCD about hording source material.

 

[Fenris-77]

Presumably, then, one of the possible routes into being a sandbox DM would simply be to take one of these very detailed existing settings and use it more-or-less as written. Prep time then largely becomes time spent reading the materials, rather than time spent dreaming stuff up on your own.

You could do that, sure. The next step is to take all the bits you like from whatever settings and sourcebooks you have that fit the feel you want and portmanteau them together into a single setting, which is what I currently do. I write a lot of my own stuff, but I also steal and adapt a lot of stuff. When you have kids and shit the idea of writing a whole setting from scratch doesn't look that appealing.

 

[robertsconley]

Presumably, then, one of the possible routes into being a sandbox DM would simply be to take one of these very detailed existing settings and use it more-or-less as written. Prep time then largely becomes time spent reading the materials, rather than time spent dreaming stuff up on your own.

As long as you keep in mind that the details ends at some point. There is never enough. Provided it is well presented and tersely written. I gravitate to material where it straight forward to weave in my own high level view of how things are in the setting. Anything below that is welcomed and the more the merrier.

 

[under_score]

Presumably, then, one of the possible routes into being a sandbox DM would simply be to take one of these very detailed existing settings and use it more-or-less as written. Prep time then largely becomes time spent reading the materials, rather than time spent dreaming stuff up on your own.

I don't think running a sandbox requires dreaming everything up yourself. My games are mostly a bunch of other material that I've wanted to run and just modify it to fit into my game. For the OSE game I kicked off last week, I drew a hexmap of about 150x75 miles. Threw in the Keep from B2, a village from Stoneheart, Rob's village from Scourge, and a half dozen dungeons from various sources. Most of my creative energy is spent making those things fit together, creating or expanding on NPCs and factions so that the region feels alive, and creating random encounter tables (again, so it feels alive).

 

[Endless Flight]

I realized a while back that there’s no way I can read all the stuff that I might be slightly curious about, so I usually don’t go there. Something has to really grab me to invest my time in any longer, whether it’s RPGs, books, shows, or comics. Also, my wife would get pissed if I added to my already heavy plate. She knows the Pub takes a lot of my time already and that’s not even playing the games.

 

[Fenris-77]

I realized a while back that there’s no way I can read all the stuff that I might be slightly curious about, so I usually don’t go there. Something has to really grab me to invest my time in any longer, whether it’s RPGs, books, shows, or comics. Also, my wife would get pissed if I added to my already heavy plate. She knows the Pub takes a lot of my time already and that’s not even playing the games.

Sometimes I'll buy a supplement just for the random tables, or just for a couple of mechanics and I'll never read any other part of it. This is what OSR asset acquisition looks like for me. If one out of 8 or 10 of those ends up being a solid overall read I'm pretty happy.

We've been talking about how people run sandboxes and what resources they use. One of my current go-tos is Into the Wyrd and Wild, a system neutral OSR supplement for wilderness exploration with a distinct creepy horror vibe. This isn't a sales job, but I'll describe why it's a supplement I get so much use out of. First, it has an excellent set of wilderness exploration rules: rules for frontier economy, making camp, resource management, hunting, and that sort of thing. It also has an extensive bestiary that I love because it feels different from more standard OSR stuff. The book has factions and big bads, and all kinds of vaguely Fae-like craziness mixed with a healthy dose of body horror. On top of that it has a great system for creating what the author calls wilderness dungeons, which is really like a random generator for linked encounter areas plus rules for the paths and whatnot that connect them. The whole book is thematically tight and enormously evocative. The art is also fucking amazing.

So as a GM what the hell does all that mean? One, I can bash out a linked series of wilderness encounters at a closer to dungeon level of detail in a short-ish evening. Two, wilderness exploration has consistent feel with just enough mechanics to keep it interesting. Three, the factions allow me to keep things moving in the background regardless of what the players do. Three, because the theme is strong, it keeps the whole exploration thing feeling very much of a piece to the players. It also has the virtue of having awesome monsters that no one is familiar with (unless they have the book). This makes things a lot more interesting than using the same somewhat tired D&D usual suspects (although those can be used perfectly well, of course). there's a balance there for me between giving me a ton of great ideas but also giving me enough concrete material that prep isn't a huge chore. Even reskinning entire dungeons isn't a big deal - I did that for a couple of Trilemma adventures in an evening, including fitting them into the overall faction stuff. The book also has a healthy dose of great creatures that are essentially a whole encounter in themselves.

So, whatever the resource is, find one, or two, or however many, that really make you quiver with excitement to use them. Resources that give you a big leg up on prep while still leaving you space to make it your own. Random tables, bestiaries, evocative locations, whatever. If you're excited to use it, your players will probably be excited to play it. This is why I buy so many fucking books, because ideas that really excite me aren't super common, and it's those ideas that keep me coming back to the table.

 

[Endless Flight]

I should also point out that if I do pick something up, something else will fall by the wayside. It’s just how I am and my gamer ADD has always worked. I have a hard time juggling multiple games in my head at once. It’s like a horse with blinders on.

 

[Brock Savage]

Now we're cooking with gas, I am happy to see people getting into the spirit of sharing what works for them.

We've been talking about how people run sandboxes and what resources they use. One of my current go-tos is Into the Wyrd and Wild, a system neutral OSR supplement for wilderness exploration with a distinct creepy horror vibe.

I am picking this one up today, thanks for the recommendation. If I walk away using the rules for hunting and butchering monsters I consider it a win.

 

[Fenris-77]

I should also point out that if I do pick something up, something else will fall by the wayside. It’s just how I am and my gamer ADD has always worked. I have a hard time juggling multiple games in my head at once. It’s like a horse with blinders on.

Yeah, this is how my brain works too. Add one thing and something else drops. This is why I start far more cool projects than I finish.

 

[robertsconley]

Well since we are showing off collections.

Harn stuff (Lower Shelves)

Upper Shelf and also my current RPG stuff shelf.

 

[Fenris-77]

Now we're cooking with gas, I am happy to see people getting into the spirit of sharing what works for them.

I am picking this one up today, thanks for the recommendation. If I walk away using the rules for hunting and butchering monsters I consider it a win.

Just an FYI, this is a book I'm using for our Cobblefell campaign. So lets write some wilderness experience into Gor's background.

 

[Endless Flight]

“What’s going on in here?”

“Oh just a bunch of dudes showing off their big ones.”

 

[Tulpa Girl]

I've repurposed a lot of Harn maps, because they're so well done. Not just the professional stuff either; the people who make the various fan-made maps tend to bring their A-game, so that they don't look especially shabby by comparison.

If there's any Harn-based PDFs that you might want , but aren't willing to pay what they're charging (which is pricey, I agree), it might be worth your time to sign up for their mailing list. They do flash sales on a pretty regular basis, sometimes giving some pretty substantial discounts (half or more off is not unknown) for individual items for limited periods of time. If it's not something you need quickly or urgently, and if you check your email on a daily basis, you might get a chance to pick up something on your 'wish list' for a much more reasonable price.

 

[ffilz]

We've been talking about how people run sandboxes and what resources they use. One of my current go-tos is Into the Wyrd and Wild, a system neutral OSR supplement for wilderness exploration with a distinct creepy horror vibe. This isn't a sales job, but I'll describe why it's a supplement I get so much use out of. First, it has an excellent set of wilderness exploration rules: rules for frontier economy, making camp, resource management, hunting, and that sort of thing. It also has an extensive bestiary that I love because it feels different from more standard OSR stuff. The book has factions and big bads, and all kinds of vaguely Fae-like craziness mixed with a healthy dose of body horror. On top of that it has a great system for creating what the author calls wilderness dungeons, which is really like a random generator for linked encounter areas plus rules for the paths and whatnot that connect them. The whole book is thematically tight and enormously evocative. The art is also fucking amazing.

How do their rules and charts compare to some of the other options out there? One disadvantage of the PDF market vs the old days of in store browsing and purchasing is you can't skim the product through to get an idea. The $20 price tag is a bit high for an impulse purchase of something that has a lot of overlap with what I already have.

 

[Fenris-77]

How do their rules and charts compare to some of the other options out there? One disadvantage of the PDF market vs the old days of in store browsing and purchasing is you can't skim the product through to get an idea. The $20 price tag is a bit high for an impulse purchase of something that has a lot of overlap with what I already have.

It's worth every penny, provided you want what it brings. I would have happily paid that price for just the art and the bestiary. If you play OSR stuff a lot of the systems and mechanics will also be useful, and the wilderness dungeon thing is pretty cool. I found the overlap to be very minimal with other stuff I have. The systems are pretty hardcore and designed to produce a real lost in the woods kind of feel without wiping character skill, which is cool, and the monsters are very unique. The combo of neat creatures and harvesting their saleable parts is also very well done, and slicker than any other similar treatment of that same idea I've ever read. If you want, PM me endless questions and I'll answer them.

Sorry, edit, there are also a lot of really good charts for running wilderness shit.

 

[carpocratian]

I was hoping there would be more people sharing how they run their own sandboxes along with helpful tips etc. I feel like the debate over definitions and unlikely theoretical situations is overshadowing useful info that can be used at the table.

I have a preference for running longer campaigns (a year or more), and always do them in what I consider to be a "sandbox" fashion. I'm not overly concerned with different definitions of that term, since I have always thought of it as a broad descriptive category that covers a lot of styles.

I generally start prepping for campaigns a few months before I intend to run them. If I am doing purely imaginary worlds, I rough out maps, star charts, or whatever is relevant to the world. For Call of Cthulhu and other things set in a version of the real world, I start with a new unmarked map of our world.

Most of the campaigns have a general theme or feel to them. For example, the D&D 5e campaign I have been running for a couple of years now is very specifically set up to have some early Bronze Age-ish features: relatively low population counts, very few large population centers, huge portions of the world that are unmapped, little long-distance travel, etc.

I populated the world with all sorts of things, from interesting locations to odd creatures, surreal villages, etc. I fixed some of the stuff to the map, and held some back to add in later as I fleshed out the world more. Part of the sandbox approach, for me, includes doing an initial wave of worldbuilding and establishing the general "rules" of the setting, then doing constant expansion and detailing of the world as things progress. There are some things that progress in the background, and some things that are only set in motion if the characters happen to encounter them.

I spent a good amount of time explaining the differences between that world and standard D&D settings to the players, both before I agreed to DM the game and during a session zero. I continued to stress those differences early on. D&D is not my favorite system, but it is what they wanted to use. I run it in more of an "old school" way, so we talked a lot about what that entailed. One thing I had to reiterate a few times is that the creatures are based more on real world mythology and folklore than their D&D versions, so it would be a mistake to assume that you know how dangerous a manticore is (for example) or how it is likely to act. I also make up a lot of original creatures, in keeping with the idea of the world being a big unknown place with a lot to discover.

At the beginning of the campaign I threw out some potential short adventure hooks, by way of rumors and gossip, but I made sure the players understood that there was no reason they had to pursue any of them. They went ahead and followed one, just to get things going, but by the second or third session they had decided to take off in a whole other direction and do some exploring. Everything since then has been driven by what they choose to do, without any prompting from me. As they have learned more about the world, they have made up their own minds about the type of things they want to do.

They have come up with all sorts of plans that I never could have seen coming. At various times they have been merchants, sailors, explorers, and organizers for migrating settlers. They are pretty fixed on the idea of buying and running a particular business, and once looked into starting their own religion. If they wanted to become bakers and have bakery-oriented adventures, we would do that.

I tend to put a lot of effort into getting new groups used to the idea that there is no central plot to my campaigns, and that the "story" is just whatever emerges from their choices. I talk about it specifically, but also do a lot to encourage and (subtly) praise them when they take the initiative. My biggest DM skill is improvisation and free-associating new stuff along the way, so most of my players end up being comfortable going off in various directions without worrying about burdening me or messing things up. You can't really go off the rails in my campaigns, because there is no pre-determined direction to things.

In the end, I build the world and throw a lot of stuff in it. I run the NPCs and creatures according to how I think they would realistically act in any given situation, without regard to it driving a plot point or serving any purpose other than being as "realistic" as possible. Most of the creatures in my world won't automatically fight to the death, if they choose to fight at all. I tend to base their behaviors on that of wildlife in the real world. I don't worry about "balance" at all. Some things are far too dangerous to deal with, though my players often come up with clever strategies to lessen the dangers they encounter.

I enjoy the creative nature of the worldbuilding, and love to see how the players approach things. I never have a solution to a given problem in mind, or even assume that there is a solution (other than running away). I simply put stuff out there and then see how the players deal with it. I'm not in competition with them, and don't see "my world" as something they can "ruin." I get a big kick out of seeing the clever things they come up with.

 

[Voros]

Given that the arrangement of the nodes is up the GM it seems like it works. The premise, or teleos, of the story line is contained within the nodes. The number and arrangement of the nodes can be changed, but the very presence of the nodes represents the finite information set that applies to the issue at hand. We might want to change the name to avoid confusion, but the idea is pretty spot on IMO.

The nodes idea is very similar to Markus Montola's idea of attractors in rpgs:
Post in thread 'Writings on Role-Playing Games' https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/writings-on-role-playing-games.2603/post-174726