Some Thoughts on an "Organic Sandbox" Campaign

I'm itching to start up a new campaign with the old gaming group and I'm considering if I should make it an "organic sandbox" of sorts.

When I say "organic sandbox", I'm thinking a known but small starting area with requisite dungeon to kick things off, but then resorting to ample use of the following resources:

D30 Sandbox Companion

D30 DM Companion

AD&D 1e DMG

Tome of Adventure Design

Various Dungeon, Wilderness, Urban and Village Dressing Books

Dyson's Maps

Swords & Wizardry Light

An assortment of adventures ready to roll

So, here's my idea. With the right resources at my finger tips, I don't even need to be a full step ahead of my players. I need the right maps uploaded into Roll20 that they might find useful (and i need to label them so they are easy for me to reference and know what they do) I get to start my players out with some adventure seeds early on (D30 Books and Tome of Adventure Design will come in handy) and my players will lead the way.

Of course, if they go where I think they plan on going, based on feedback, I may have a step or two on them, but even if they go in some random direction I'll have the tools to be prepared and keep the story moving.

In a way, its freeing, because you don't need to do a lot of prep for stuff they will never encounter. Its also scary, because you don't know what's going to happen next as a DM, or even "where next" actually is.

Swords & Wizardry Light will be the ruleset because:

A) I wrote the 4 pages but more importantly...

B) Since its only a handful of pages, the system gets out of the way and should allow for the play to roam freely. As I already have the rules scratched out for levels four and five as well as extra classes, its also a playtest of sorts.

Ideas? Thoughts? Share away. Did I overlook any resources? (I'n sure I did)

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Scaling Your Sandbox

When I was running "The Caves of Ortok" last night, my players did what good players should do - they went off the script. They were so damn sure there was something beneath the tentacle headed statue there was no way in hell they were going to leave it standing.

As written, it was just a statue. Nothing special except the design of its head. When my players saw it, the "knew" it was special. In truth, if +Jason Paul McCartan wasn't lurking and watching the players progress (or whatever it is my group does that resembles progress) I probably would have put something under the statues. Minor treasure, a map, stairs - something. As it were, I wanted to keep true, as much as was possible, to the adventure design. To some extent, it was a playtest of sorts.

Still, my instinct is to reward my players when they think out of the box, as such rewards not only them, but myself and the campaign as a whole.

As +Jason Paul McCartan pointed out afterwards in regards to Sandboxes, and I agree, it is as much about freedom of choice for the players as it is them putting their own spin on the direction of the campaign. In truth, why shouldn't there have stairs beneath the statue they tumbles, long hidden and leading into dark depths, perhaps flooded and requiring the party to return at a later time, properly prepared for such an expedition?

Because it was written as such?

Sandboxes aren't so much written as created by the players and the events they put into motion. Sandboxes form in reaction to the actions of the players, not in spite of them.

A thriving sandbox is the result of ones players.

I've had some difficulty in seeing a sandbox as anything but a hex crawl, and now I see the sand is perpetually around the players so long as you allow it to be. And they allow it to be. A proper sandbox requires the DM to trust the players' ingenuity and also requires the players to trust the DM's judgement and off the cuff rulings.

It isn't so much the scale as the amount of trust.

I Finally Own a Copy of the "Ready Ref Sheets"

Until my eBay copy arrived today, I never owned a copy of the Ready Ref Sheets from Judges Guild. An amazing confession, I know ;)

Not the easiest to read for my aging eyes, but it's a damn near mint condition copy and I'm very happy with it. Along with the D30 books, I should have the tools to fill some amazing sandboxes.

I'll need to do a post or two mixing the tables from the three books, but probably not until I put this week from hell behind me.

Oh, that's Chloe, our dachshund. Last night at 11 PM we thought she was on her way out, but she instead was having a slight OD from the fenal barbital she was just started on for Monday Night's severe seizures. Vet visit earlier this evening as a follow up to the emergency vet hospital stay has her a-okay, all things considered. She's now on lifetime meds for her heart and the seizures. Our little trooper. And yes, she shares the bed at night with our cat Ashley. :)

Thoughts on a Swords & Sorcery Sandbox

Yesterday I asked for some ideas / thoughts / feedback on designing a sandbox. The feedback was / is (as it's still coming in) excellent on both the blog side and G+. Lots and lots of stuff to think about, especially with the size of the default hex - I must say there is something to be said about the 10 mile hex broken down by 2 mile hexes within. 6 mile hexes have a good argument too.

As I look at my sandbox, I've pretty much decided that I want it to be Swords & Sorcery in flavor. Why? Mostly because my newest campaign is going to be using the Crypts & Things ruleset (which in turn is based of Swords & Wizardry). Since S&S is the flavor for the new campaign, I may as well mix the exercise of working on a new sandbox into the mix.

S&S leads to, in my opinion, a less default urban setting and more of a "each urban center, large or small, has it's own feel to it" which is cool to play with when designing. It also means you no longer have the usual fantasy races to play with and fill their default roles, which become a whole 'nother change.

Actually, starting small and working outward is a good thing. Maybe the world does have a limited numer of demihumans, but this area is remote enough that they are known as mere legends amongst the populace. It allows be to throw "generic fantasy" into the mix at a later point, with all of the issue / problems / intrigue that follows it.

Alright, time to read some of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Graphic Novel to get myself in the right frame of mind ;)

Sandbox Thoughts - Staring Into the White

Back in my first gaming life (1980 -1997) I don't ever recall calling "sandbox" styled play a sandbox.  The first time you went "sandbox" is when your players zigged instead of zagged, and for the first time you didn't try to shoehorn them into what you had planned for them, but instead rolled with it.

Surprisingly it was empowering, both for the players and for me.  It validated the idea that their decisions actually mattered.  As for me, it allowed the campaign world to take on more of my ideas, as well as keeping me challenged (and preventing me from becoming a lazy DM).

I would weave adventures, mostly from Dungeon Magazine, but occasionally any random adventure released by TSR directly, with lots of sandbox style freedom.  Still, that sandbox styled freedom came with a price:  Preparation and improvisation.  The improvisation I was daily good at at.  Preparation, much less so, especially when you have no idea which way the players are going to zig, zag and / or jump.  There is nothing like staring into the white of a blank sheet of paper and realizing your friends want to play D&D, and you just got caught with your pants down.

Regretfully, my best tool for this style of sandbox play wasn't released until 1994.  Decks 1 and 2 of the Decks of Encounter Series are made for sandbox styled play.  These 3x5 index card sized cards allow for a DM to prepare (read) a number of possible encounters to keep the party on their toes (and keep the game from bogging down).  I always had something ready, no matter which way the players went.

Prior to the encounter deck, I had a listing of encounter ideas - generally two to three lines on a page of notebook paper, giving me an encounter or adventure seed.  Haven't found this yet while going thru the basement, and at this point i expect I won't.  Still, it was something I kept with me at work, or on a weekend in the Poconos, jotting down stuff as it occurred and using it later if the situation suited it.

Oh, and I also thru in lots of "dungeon bait".  The players knew that adventure and money generally came from the dungeons.  When I needed a change of pace, with less yap and more dice, I gave them rumors of a newly found / re-found / magically appearing / re-opened dungeon.

I'm actually going thru set one of the Deck of Encounters tonight, grabbing cards that may work well (or barely at all, won't know until the time comes) in this coming Saturday's ACKS game kick off.  Well, maybe not the kick off, as I firmly believe you need something fairly set to get a campaign successfully launched, but the cards will be very useful in the weeks to come.