My approach to sandbox and ruleset creation

There are two things that I want to write about today, namely my sandbox and the ruleset that I will use for running it. I don’t know if somebody besides myself will ever find this text useful, but I want to write it nevertheless, both as a kind of a statement, a promise to myself and a way to verbalize what is running around my head (and keeping me away from studying for my finals, exams etc.).

First and foremost, my sandbox. For the last few years I have had a couple of attempts to running a sandbox, each one was an utter failure. Yesterday I made another map and this time I was really happy about it… but only for an hour or so. Later, I started to give it more thought and things stopped looking so pretty. I’ve got the impression that the scaling is wrong, the hexes are too large, the distances are too big etc. So, a lot of my effort goes to waste simply because I’m not good at creating maps. Hell, I never was. I hated geography at school, and I guess that now it shows.

The map now lies before me and I’m really thinking about throwing it away, as I don’t think that I want to run a campaign in the world that I’ve drawn. I think that this can be a problem for anybody that is relatively new to  the hobby (I started playing RPGs at the 30^th birthday of D&D) and hasn’t been raised on sandboxes, real freedom of choice etc. But as always, the Internet has an answer. I can generate each and every hex of my sandbox (at least in theory), even during play. Then the world will be as surprising for me as for the players, and I won’t have to dedicate horrendous amounts of time to create a map that I won’t even like. I’ve found some ideas about how to determine the contents of every hex. Of course, that means that I’ll have to generate a batch of places before each game. But in reality I would have to do it either way, so it’s not a big deal. And as each place will be reusable (places will stay there, dungeons can be restock, each hex can host more than one lair), after each session of play I will have more stuff to get back to. For me it’s a win-win situation. Of course it can lead to funny situations, like a bunch of villages clumped together, some shrines and temples dedicated to different gods standing almost on top of each other, but it’s still the beauty of chance rolls. I like the idea and I want to create my sandbox that way.

The second topic for today’s post is the ruleset I want to use. I love reading retro clones, I love the TSR D&D stuff, but there is a high probability that my players won’t like that. Almost everybody that I talked to is excited about playing in my sandbox (I will have it with me on various occasions and if another campaign isn’t available I’ll just run the baby of random), but they can and will get confused about some rules that are inherent for many old school games.

So I decided that actually I won’t be making a retro clone of my own devise to use in my games, neither will I use something available. I do want to create my own set of rules and I do want it to be like D&D (the SRD enables me to do so, luckily). What will I do? I will mix the old with the new, make an eclectic choice (at least from the modern gamers perspective) of rules and hopefully will be able to brew something simple, fast and easy to run.

For now, I have a few ideas running inside my head. So, the things that I want to have in the basic version of my game:

• Prime attributes and the bonus exp.
• Some form of bonuses and penalties for high and low scores, but I will cap it probably at +3.
• Static AC, so each armor type has a set AC score, not a bonus to AC
• BAB. As hideous as it may be, I want to have it, as it’s easier than checking the tables to hit. But I’ll probably have the Monster HD vs AC table, because I like it.
• Three classes (Fighter, Magic-User and Cleric) and three races/classes (Dwarf, Elf, Halfling). I’m still uncertain about the Thief class. If I ever actually finish the booklet of my rules, it’s possible that I’ll add subclasses later on.
• S&W WB (or OD&D, I’m not sure yet) format of spells and monsters. It’s easy, not too detailed and I simply like it.

Those are the things that I have come up with for now. This is all prone to change, and there is actually a possibility that I will post my materials here before I’ll compile a pdf.

Oh, and what with possible generators? As You can see, they are basically system-free, and I like creating them, so if You visit this blog for that type of content, rest assured that from time to time I’ll post something new (or other type of system-free content, like description of a god or a place). That is, if I have the time and stop procrastinating. And if You like my monster ideas, as my game will still use this format of the stat-block, the stuff that I’ll make will have that pleasant, OSR style feel to it.

Fight on!

Marsh Spider, Brood Mother

Marsh Spider, Brood Mother

Armor Class: 5 [14]

Hit Dice: 4 +2

Attack: bite (2d6 + poison), web (special)

Special: See Below

Move: 18

HDE/XP:  6/400

Brood Mothers are the Marsh Spiders’ equivalent of a hive queen. They are the largest females in the nest, and the only ones eligible of laying eggs (if a Brood Mother dies, the function goes to the next largest specimen in the nest), and due to their responsibilities are also the meanest spiders that an adventurer can meet. They share the special abilities of  normal Marsh Spiders, but can also use a web that functions like the Web spell. For unknown reasons, Brood Mothers prefer lizardman and dwarf meat.

Marsh Spider

Marsh Spider

Armor Class:     6 [13]

Hit Dice:           1-3 +2

Attack:              bite (1d6 + poison), web (special)

Special:             See Below

Move:               18

HDE/XP:          4/120 , 5/240, 6/400

Marsh Spiders are cousins to Great Spiders. They inhabit various marshes, bogs, swamps and some forests. The come in many sizes and colours. Marsh Spiders usually live in broods led by a Brood Mother, although solitary specimen and packs of these creatures are also possible to encounter. The toxin of Marsh Spiders (even the larger ones) is not as potent as that of a Giant Spider, so it requires a normal save vs. poison. 3/day Marsh Spiders can try to use a Sleep like effect with their bite and they have a 50% chance to succeed. They prefer to do so on large prey before hauling it back to their nest to devour it slowly. Marsh Spiders can also throw a gobbet of their web on their enemies, blinding them for 1 round. Lizardmen sometimes attempt to tame these beasts.

Lairs seem fun

When I was doing my first  research on Old School gaming, the term Lair appeared sporadically and I didn’t even bother to check it out. I mean, as a non-game term it denotes a place in which something lives and it’s usually nasty. Boring, isn’t it? My first association was a cave with one creature inside. And in my imagination it wasn’t even a dragon (during my entire dm/gm/referee career I’ve used a dragon only once, in my first game. It was a white wyrmling, and it was slaughtered immediately)! So I ditched that concept altogether and read more on Dungeons, Megadungeons, Modules, Wilderness etc. And basically everything else that a person can throw into a sandbox, excluding only Lairs.

A text that I’ve recently read proves that I was a fool by throwing Lairs away. Before further reading I recommend taking a look on the linked article (it’s the last in a series of three, but it has the most meat on it).

Ok, so once You’ve read that, I can continue with praising Lairs. Why do I find them appealing? Using the template from the article, they are fairly easy to create. You create a theme, some rooms (2 to 5) with creatures (monsters, constructs, bandits, whatever You like, actually) that fit that theme, a short backstory, a couple of rumors that the players will hear, and You’re done. Oh, wait. You can always make a map, and  doing so is quite advisable, unless You not only have eidetic memory, but are also able to draw a map in Your imagination. The last part is to put it in Your sandbox. This is so easy that You can make a whole batch of different Lairs at once, place them in different places in the world and wait until Your players stumble upon  them. And then look what those witty little creatures will do. In my case it depends on the ‘set of players’ that I’m working with. Some would explore each and every lair. Some would slay everything inside. Some would try to parlay with creatures that possess reason, tame the beasts, try to find a way to control the constructs and make the best looking lair their base of operations. Some would visit only the lairs that they had found amusing.

Another advantage is that Lairs are a very good rest from other sandbox stuff. From exploring a dungeon that will take several generations of PCs to even get the idea of its extent of (and from what we learn from Gygax, there should always be some unexplored levels), checking the modules and taking parts from the adventures therein. 

Lairs are concise, small, and plainly fun.

To sum up, I’m glad that I’ve stumbled upon the article and revised my opinion on Lairs. I think that my players will see some quite soon.

OD&D Premium?

For quite a long time I was blissfully oblivious of the news regarding RPGs in general, and WotC stuff in particular. Some time ago I discovered that Wizards published not only AD&D 1^st, but also 2^nd and D&D 3^rd in their premium editions. And today, when I’ve been skimming through various blogs and posts I’ve noticed two reviews  in which at first I could not believe (namely: here and here). I mean, they have also released 0e? How cool is that!

Of course the price is also premium (150$ retail and 109$ on amazon), but, hell, it’s still much less than trying to get the set from the original run. The problem would be that it’s temporarily out of stock on Amazon. Why would be and not is? Because I plan to ask my flgs to get me a copy when it’s possible.

And why would I like to have it? First, look at it. It’s beautiful, it’s aesthetic. Second, it would be a gem in my collection of sourcebooks (and I really am a dragon for that matter, in my 10 years of gaming I’ve accumulated more than 200 books for about 30 games and I still want more and more). Third, it’s like having a piece of history on Your shelf. Fourth, because I want to. I just do.

And in case You haven’t already seen the reviews that I linked, I’ll write down what can be found in that marvelous wooden box:

•          3 LBB, 6th print, from what I’ve read. With a better organized, justified interior. Sweet!
•       All 4 supplements. Even though the new numeration is from I to VII, not I to III and Supplement I to IV, if somebody wants this set, that person probably knows what is what
•       A set of premium dice. New dice are new dice, who could complain for having more of those?
•       The box itself. If You remove the elements that hold the booklets in place, You can easily fill in more stuff, like Your homerules, campaign and other little booklets.

So, wish me luck, I really want to get my hands on that!