Downtime is sweet, it breaks the campaign into chunks, making time pass and allowing players to pursue personal goals that might not be interesting to the rest of the players to play out for an entire session but lead to interesting developments and more hooks into the world. Time becomes a resource as torches burn …
Using 2d6 Downtime Activities In My Worlds Without Number Game Read More »
A hundred spells Phandaal personally had formulated — though rumor said that demons whispered at his ear when he wrought magic. Pontecilla the Pious, then ruler of Grand Motholam, put Phandaal to torment, and after a terrible night, he killed Phandaal and outlawed sorcery throughout the land. The wizards of Grand Motholam fled like beetles …
Glory of the Elder Days: Magic Items and Sandbox Histories Read More »
If you haven’t heard, a lot of folks in the RPG space are taking part in the #Dungeon23 challenge. Recently started by Sean Mccoy on Twitter the idea is that if you key a single room a day starting on January 1st in a dungeon complex you’ll have a detailed 365 room dungeon at the …
Dungeon 23: My Procedure for Making A Megadungeon Sandbox Read More »
Creators often live in the shadow of their own previous work, the big thing they’re known for. Danial Radcliffe isn’t called the guy from Guns Akimbo or Swiss Army Man– he’s Harry Potter to the average person on the street. Steamtunnel at the Hydra’s Grotto can be counted among these shaded creators by their well …
The dungeon is the primordial ooze that tabletop RPG’s wriggled out of. There is something elemental and powerful about a mysteriously connected location to explore with treasures and dangers hidden within. It’s just plain fun game design. Many of the layout and design elements that make a dungeon great can also be applied to the …
The Wilderness is a Dungeon: Jaquaysing Your RPG Sandbox Read More »
Hex crawl sandbox settings can suffer from an overdose of non meaningful choice without enough information to make informed decisions. I think using a point crawl makes choices more interesting by constraining them to detailed specific choices. You wouldn’t run a dungeon of rooms with six entrances connected to each other in a large grid …
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. John Muir In order for a sandbox RPG region to have a sense of verisimilitude it’s important for many of the locations in the area to be actually connected to each other instead of existing as a …
A Web of Hooks: Quest Connections in a Sandbox Megadungeon Region Read More »
There’s been heaps of great writing has been about the value of specific procedures in old school D&D that atrophied away and were forgotten as editions marched on. The reaction table, morale rolls, and a system of location exploration turns linked to diminishing light and increasing odds of random encounter are all valuable to support …
Side quests provide much of the meat of a sandbox region, potential hooks that are unrelated or tangentially related to a primary goal that allow player pursuit of a variety of goals and interests. In fact, it’s completely fine to not have a “main quest” in a tabletop campaign dedicated to player autonomy in a …
Better Side Quests With The Therefore or But Principle Read More »
