Amarod (I) - Creating a sandbox

I started my current sandbox campaign in late 2022. 

I'm using Dark Fantasy Basic with a few updates.

We play a bit more than a couple of hours every couple of weeks, so it went slowly... but the system is simple and I hand-wave some stuff, so things hopefully are not too slow.

As it approaches a (possible?) ending, I thought I'd make a brief recap - but this post also has some advice on how to build your own sandbox campaign, including sharing some of my mistakes.

The first thing you have to do is to draw a map. This is really easy - I do NOT recommend random generators here. 

I used (and recommend) Hextml. It allows you to expand the map as you go. The PC map currently looks like this:

MY map in Hextml is a bit bigger, but the PCs haven't explored much of it. Their map was even smaller when they first arrived in Belarte (the capitol) by boat, from a distant land that is NOT part of the campaign.

My advice here is start small and add more stuff as the PCs explore.

I wanted to try an hexcrawl, but I'm thinking maybe a pointcrawl would be better, with an old-looking map. 

In any case, as you can see I eventually wrote down the distances in the map (6d = 6 days, and so on) to make things easier. There are few roads beyond Aplos, so they are currently back to counting hexes.

I wrote a brief story of the region (Amarod), which is very simple: an ancient (western) empire fell, now the land is full of warring clans, but the (eastern) new empire is invading these lands. The PCs are mercenaries trying to make a buck, owning no allegiance to either "side", but taking advantage of the eastern invaders relative safety.

These are some important aspects of most D&D settings: ancient empires, ruins/dungeons, a social order that is between stable and flexible, factions and shades of gray.

The second step is scattering a few dungeons, caves, towers and villages around. In my case, I used various BFRPG modules plus Doom of the Savage Kings, The God That Crawls, etc. Mektlan is Tamoachan - the PC's latest exploit.

I did not have all these modules memorized, of course, which caused some issues. Read this post - it contains some important sandbox experience IMO.

Using mostly 1st-level modules was sub-optimal; when they got to level 3 or so, things quickly became too easy. In a future campaign I might start them at level 2 or 3 so the curve is less steep.

I assigned the area around Belarte as "safer", meaning encounters are less likely.

Now, I could say that PCs were free to roam around... but they'd be lost. So I offered them a few rumors and quests about nearby places, and several NPC expeditions they could join. 

It kinda worked. By level 3 or 4, they were planning their own expeditions and hiring their own guides without me having to offer anything.

I recommend starting with three suggestions per session. Some of them should be time-sensitive, but I haven't really implemented a system for that. This deserves further reflection, as the PCs have been treating time as an endless resource ("let's rest for three days to recover", "we will come for the goblins some other day", etc.).

NPC guides and hirelings are very useful, but RUNNING them was a hassle. Now I leave this mostly to the players.

So far, we have the PCs basically going around exploring rumors and places. As they went, I wrote down questions about the consequences of their actions:

1) What will happen in the village of Marval after the priest’s death?  A: A new priest (Father Ostid) has been appointed, you don’t know him well yet.

2) Did Polgrim and  Wolson - the NPCs who went with you to the church in Marval - talk to anyone about what happened? Remember they left when you planned to attack the evil priest.

3) Who sent a letter to the priest saying “the Lord suspects nothing”, signed only with the letter S?

4) Are the kobold ruins empty now the PCs have cleared most of them?

5) What will happen to the Jarl of Savakir (and his seer) now that the beast is dead?

Also some notes, such as "The PCs became heroes in Peranegra after defeating the local elves", etc.

One mistake is that I should have written MORE notes. Maybe every session. It would help me to get a clear picture of the events potentially unfolding.

I've been answering this questions as the adventure advances. Again, the question of TIME deserves reflection. The answer may be different depending of how long it takes for the PCs to go back to any location.

I organize ALL of this in discord channels. The players have access to maps, NPCs, questions, etc. One channel is exclusively for momentary concerns (monsters, dungeons, etc.), other channel is for dice rolls. The list of text channels goes more or less like this:

# general

# rules

# setting maps

# local maps

# adventures (momentary concerns)

# PCs and NPCs

# rolls

# questions

The map channel contains a summary of known cities and events. Each entry after the first was added as they visited new places.

Belarte: the largest port, where you arrived. Lord Belarte. 

Peranegra: famous for its pigs. You expelled the elf king who kidnapped children, and you are well-liked there. Lord Figworth (count). 

Marval: a small town with a church that has a giant slime underneath. You threw an evil priest down there. 

Savakir: a town surrounded by palisades. You killed the local monster but fled because the Jarl was chasing you. Bernier (the Jarl) and Sylle Ru (seer). 

Ilmare: a swampy city with rumors of monsters and bandits roaming the area, as well as abandoned mines. Lord Montegel. 

Mektlan: a cursed place with ruins of an ancient buried pyramid. 

Glani: a prosperous city in the region, but occasionally attacked by native clans. Duke Darvon. 

Aplos: the largest city in the region, famous for its large cathedral, with somewhat labyrinthine streets. Cardinal Godebert lifted Pete’s curse and spoke about the Heretic. You rescued the Cardinal during the siege of Glani.

To sum it up, if you want more advice: TAKE NOTES and KEEP THINGS ORGANIZED.

Anyway, that is what I've got for now. Let me know if you have any questions so I can expand this further in an eventual part II!

UPDATE: I just realized I was missing one important channel: #calendar. KEEPING TIME is extremely important. See here:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/09/random-ticking-clocks-simplified.html