Resources for Making a Sandbox from Scratch

So, with school officially ending and with no summer programs in sight, I decided to challenge my middle child with the task of creating a sandbox campaign. Although well-versed in the video gaming scene, he has only played in a few D&D campaigns, all run by yours truly. As a consequence, he really had no idea where to start. This got me to deal with the practical reality of how to make a sandbox campaign from scratch: what resources did I actually recommend and what actually worked?

1. An Atlas

Rather than trying to explain the realities of geography, weather, etc in order to make a plausible world, I just turned an atlas upside down and said, pick a page that looks cool. Not only did this make the mapmaking step of the process easy, it follows in the footsteps of giants:

The basic campaign area reproduced on a large mapsheet outside this book, was originally drawn from some old Dutch maps. — Dave Arneson, "The First Fantasy Campaign" (1977).

2. Kilgore’s Sub-Hex Quad and Master Sheet for Hex Quads Maps

Having chosen the upside-down Aegean Sea as a starting point, I had him transfer the map as best he could to Kilgor’s Master Sheet for Hex Quads. Having done that, I asked him where Civilization was and where the Wilderness was. Once that was determined, I had him pick one Quad in the Wilderness to focus on for the campaign. This was then transferred to one of Kilgor’s Sub Hex Quad sheets.

3. The Wilderness Encounter Tables in Swords & Wizardry

These are simple, organized by terrain type and produce some pretty bog-standard results that won’t challenge a new Referee too much. I had him roll a d10 for every hex on his map. Every ‘1’ resulted in a creature from the encounter table living there. Frost Giants, Lycanthropes and Berserkers dominated the landscape. Oh, and a Purple Worm right next to some old ruins.

4. My own Interpretation of Holmes on Cultures

Based on the monsters that lived in the Wilderness, he decided that the Ancient Culture were the Giants that “dug too deep” and were destroyed by Purple Worms, the Old Culture was a human culture roughly based on Russia that succumbed to madness and Lycanthropy. Then he decided that there were two competing Present Cultures. One is based roughly on the Incan Empire (with virtually no magical tradition) and the other roughly on the Republic of Texas (which is heavily magical). My eldest was thrilled at the idea of playing a magic-wielding cowboy (which eventually morphed into a society where the rite of passage to adulthood involves getting a tattoo that allows the recipient the ability to cast one first level spell a day).

5. Dave’s Mapper

This quickly produced a tent-pole megadungeon sideview and first level that “looked cool” and was thus inspiring. What more can you ask from a map?

6. The Tome of Adventure Design

I have said it before, and I will say it again: this may be the best RPG product I have ever purchased. It is chuck full of inspiration and ideas. I first had him roll up names for each of the level of the megadungeon. Then, it was used to create the various “Traps” and “Specials” that resulted from using the next resource.

7. Moldvay’s Basic D&D “Stock the Dungeon Table”

Found on page B52, this has been my go-to stocking tool for decades. While it doesn’t produce perfect results, it gets you in the ballpark as long as you understand that the results are there to inspire and not be set in stone. As long as you understand why things exist in your dungeon and it makes sense to you, it will make sense to the players.

8. Monstrosities and Swords & Wizardry

Despite voicing a desire to play 1e AD&D, I decided on Monstrosities and Swords & Wizardry for a resource on monsters to stock a dungeon because of the guidelines S&W gives for the Challenge Level of dungeon encounters. I have been quite satisfied with how well this works in game play. As a consequence, it provides a great starting point on understanding how difficult a particular dungeon area/encounter is going to be. Monstrosities also provides an example encounter for every monster in the book. So, it is also instructive about what those encounter and dungeon areas can look like.

Finally, generating treasure using S&W is dead simple and flexible. Whatever gets rolled indicates total value, not a specific coin count. So, a treasure could very well be in barrels of whisky, rolls of silk, or whatever tickles your fancy.

9. The Question “Why?”

Why do think the goblins are there? Why are they on the same level as those spiders? Why are they risking their lives to be there?

Again, if your dungeon makes sense to you, that confidence and knowledge will be communicated to the players and it will make for a better game.

10. Dyson’s Maps

Once the first level of the megadungeon was squared away, I had him choose three maps from Dyson’s collection to represent various lairs in the vicinity of the starting village. I had him repeat the various steps he used to do the first level of the megadungeon.

In the end, I had to cut him short when he told me he had an idea for his various dungeons. “Just write it down” became a mantra. It goes to show, however, how useful all of these resources are: they inspired a newbie to create a world where things make sense to him and enough choices for his players that he won’t be having to improvise that much any time time soon.

In other words, he’s confident he can do this.

A Holmes Inspired Megadungeon: Under Portown

Ever since I started down the path of trying to combine Holmes and Cook, I have been trying to create a megadungeon that would tick off all the boxes I see suggested in a Holmes-style game. To a certain extent, I have accomplished much of what I wanted with my version of the Chateau des Faussesflammes, but the result has been, well, really complex.

As my Gamer ADD has recently returned to Holmes, I have been working on taking some of the ideas I put into practice with the Chateau, but in a much simpler format in order to flesh out the Sample Dungeon found in Holmes. 

Here is the basic concept: The dungeon beneath Portown is part of the Mythic Underground. Therefore, it is an NPC unto itself. One of the great dangers of the Mythic Underground is that as an environment, it is hostile to adventurers (as is evidenced by the fact that doors easily open for monsters, but PCs must use Thief Skills, spells or Strength). One way that hostility can express itself is by actually changing.

Under Portown, there are six elements of the dungeon that do not change. One is the entrance and there are five special areas which all play a major part in the backstory of the dungeon itself. I've drawn these up here:

The idea here is that the spaces around these six elements can change on a whim. For my part, I am imagining various factions vying for control of the dungeon. Each faction controls a different version of the dungeon. As each faction's power waxes and wanes, the Mythic Underground exposes different versions of itself to the surface world.

Thus, I can take a piece of tracing paper and draw out different "levels" and place them over my six static elements. Here is a version where I took pieces and parts of the Sample Dungeon of Holmes:

Alternately, I can do this electronically. I purposely used geomorphs to create the five main elements of the dungeon so that it would be possible to create something in Dave's Mapper to drop my main elements into with little effort on my part:

The result is an ever-changing megadungeon with an unlimited number of rooms; however, PCs will always have anchor points of familiarity if they can find those unchanging elements of each version of the dungeon. If they can figure out part of the mechanism of when the dungeon changes, they can also begin to have some control over which version of the dungeon they explore.

Prepping a Sandbox Campaign: Part 3

Step 3: Place Your Centerpiece Dungeon

This is an important step, even if you never see your players show any desire for entering your megadungeon/dungeon of choice. The reason being, the backstory of the dungeon affects the backstory of the region and the campaign. Often times, there will be something inside the dungeon, whether an object, a person or a piece of information (or all three) that the various factions within the campaign are vying for. Thus, the dungeon will be a source of adventure even if the players themselves never go there.

Personally, I rarely use published dungeons for this purpose, because the backgrounds often don’t jive with what I want to do with the world (unless I start with the dungeon and move out, but that usually involves a lot more work). Since we are doing an exercise for folks who don’t have the time or inclination to draw maps, etc. I would suggest doing a couple of things:

Go to Dave’s Mapper and play. You can make a side-view of a dungeon and then a map for each section of the dungeon in that side view. You can also go look at the plethora of maps Dyson Logos has done over the years. To keep your own efforts to a minimum, you really need only do a sideview to begin. The rest can be done later as needed.

For my own purposes, I decided to go with a map Dyson drew several years ago called Fedor’s Pass. The name is evocative, there are a number of levels already mapped and some that are not. This leaves room for me to use either maps of my own creation, those found by playing with Dave’s Mapper or using other maps by Dyson.

The name “Fedor’s Pass” suggests that the surface structure was used to protect a road that wound its way from one side of a mountain range to another. Blackmarsh has several mountain ranges: The White Mountains, The Pendar Mountains, and the Dragonbone Peaks. The latter is the most tempting, due to its massive cave network; however, the only place that might have a pass leads to a forest…with pixies.

The Pendar and White Mountains occupy the western edge of the map. If the whole 010X column of hexes were filled in with mountains and hills, then there would be a need for a pass to go west off the map.

Hex 0107 has a group of bandits out for revenge against Castle Blackoak, something I am not particularly interested in. It would, however, put Fendar’s Pass in close proximity to the castle and make sense as front-line defense position for anything trying to use the path to raid or invade Blackmarsh.

Why 3x5 Geomorphs?

Andrew of Fictive Fantasies, who has coined the phrase Prokopian, has commented:

I think these geomorphs are cool (obviously, as I'm making some.) I want to note, however, I don't have a problem with the regular geomorphs. I look at this map I did with the Dungeonmorph Dice fonts, for example. I did some in Word and Photoshop to touch it up, but the end result was evocative and cool. My players enjoyed it.

http://fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/plusevian-plaza-map.jpg?w=436&h=500

The said file is, indeed, very cool. Like Andrew, I love geomorphs. All one has to do is go over to Dave's Mapper and click on FrDave to see how much effort I have put into the concept, and how cool the outcome can be.

However, as someone who has regularly run game sessions with players who like to wander all over the place and as someone who has attempted to put together a module for general consumption, I sometimes struggle with making those geomorphs make sense. I also say this in context of the whole "the first level of a megadungeon is boring" meme.

When I was writing The Slave Pits of Abhoth, I really struggled to come up with a map that spoke to me. I used several methods to try and generate that creative spark and nothing really satisfied. I then happened upon the idea of the 3x5 geomorph and it unlocked all that creative potential that was the initial idea of the Slave Pits.

Since then, I have found the whole concept to be truly liberating in terms of adventure writing. When I get to play around like this:

I can't help myself, the creative juices just begin to flow and the dungeons that this process produces are just better than the ones I used to produce using other methods. Therefore, I am trying to share my enthusiasm in hopes that my success will lead to others having success at overcoming the whole "megadungeons are boring" thing.

As such, here are four of my most recent 3x5s:

WH40K Campaign: Mapping B.R.7 Part 2

As much as I love geomorphs, I must admit that due to the limitations of the form, maps made from them can be a bit blocky. One of the most popular posts in the entire history of this blog took a bunch of Dyson Logos maps drawn on 3x5 cards and stitched them together. The result was a beautifully organic looking dungeon.

In turn, I started to produce some 3x5 “geomorphs” which resulted in some more beautifully organic dungeons — the kind that we might expect (and do) find in the real world. Though (to my knowledge) my challenge to other artists out there to produce a library of 3x5 geomorphs has yet to be answered, it did power my own (ongoing) attempt to create my own version of the Slave Pits of the Undercity.

However, as Kobold of Waystar Highport points out:

I would imagine that many parts, or subsections, of a Hive would be duplicated or of "standard" design. So, one could map a couple of floors of a residential block in some detail and then decide that the design repeats, both horizontally and vertically over the extent of the Residential subsection.

Indeed, there are many aspects of any modern city that are standardized.

In other words, a megadungeon based on a WH40K hive city is a perfect application for the good, old-fashioned geomorphic map with its blocky, standardized feel. Indeed, if one wanted to limit oneself to a set of a dozen or more for an entire section of the city, not only would it not feel wrong, but would become a realistic feature.

Thus, one aspect of mapping B.R.7 is going to be a very heavy dose of geomorphic madness. In part, this is why I have happily supported Dave Millar’s recent fundraising drive — to give myself a number of geomorphs that have the feel I am looking for in a hive city. The beauty of Dave’s Mapper is that it makes maps very quickly, and given my own experience with graphic design, I can pound out a bunch of maps in short order to accommodate play.

If and when players push off a map, I can always do my own version of the “Greyhawk Construction Company” in the form of a collapsed hallway. How and why are these passageways cleared later? All part of the adventure…

Here is a quick example of what kind of maps I can produce in a short period of time using Dave’s Mapper:

IBD Update

As I mentioned the other day, Dave Millar of Dave's Mapper is running a little fund drive for a good cause (the info can be found here). Since I've had a window of opportunity to stay ahead of the game, I've been doing my part and creating geomorphs in anticipation of having to make a bunch in support of the drive. Indeed, early response has me responsible for 22 in the coming days. Unfortunately, I am well on my way to being finished with all of them.

As a bit of encouragement, I am posting some of my favorites in hopes that it will inspire some folks to increase my workload:

Dave Millar's IBD Tile Drive

Just a note that Dave of Dave's Mapper (one of the very cool tools that this community has pooled their talents to produce) is having a fund drive for a charity that is near and dear to him. You can get more information about it here.

The long and short: he contacted me to help him encourage folks with this drive and I agreed. Thus, for every $5 given from September 14 - 25, I (along with several others) will be doing another geomorph to add to Dave's Mapper. So, if you have the inclination to support a good cause and to keep me busy for a while, please take the time to donate. Thanks.

Edges and Corners

Awhile back, I gave Dave of Dave's Mapper a number of geomorphs to add to his awesome website and tool that he happily provides for our use and inspiration. All this time my name did not have the code EC next to it because I had not yet contributed any edge or corner geomorphs. Truth be told, I had, but for a variety of reasons Dave has been unable to add them to his site...until now.

Thus, I wanted to give everybody a heads up that Dave has added not only my edges and corners, but a bunch of other geomorphs for our perusal and use. I would also like to publicly thank Dave and all the other contributors for providing such a great resource.

Finally, I thought I'd share the first map generated by Dave's Mapper using my old geomorphs combined with my edges and corners:

Enjoy!