Spes Magna Games

(First published in Game Geek 10)

Let’s eavesdrop on a depressingly common Internet conversation:

First DM: My player’s PC has such-and-such class feature that is broken. What should I do?
Second DM: Just design your scenarios so that he can’t use the class feature. Problem solved.

Sound familiar? If so, and you’re a player, pass this article to the offending DM. If you are the offending DM, then pay careful attention, because the advice below might just keep your players from killing you and taking your stuff.

Favored Enemy, or How to Avoid Encountering Certain Creatures Ever Again

Let’s focus on one specific class feature: the ranger’s favored enemy. This class feature is frequently maligned because its bonuses are situational. Either you’re facing your ranger’s favored enemy and get the bonuses, or else you aren’t and you don’t. The DM gets to decide when your ranger gets to benefit from one of his defining class features.

Too often, a ranger’s favored enemies are much more like a list of creatures that the party won’t ever encounter. Take favored enemy (undead) at 1st-level, and you’ll never encounter an undead monster. Instead, orcs regularly mob the adventurers. Your ranger reaches 5th level and takes favored enemy (orc). From that point on, orcs are scarcer than hen’s teeth. Et cetera, ad nauseum.

“Well,” says the DM, “orcs and undead just aren’t challenging because you get so many bonuses against them. My job as DM is make sure the adventures are challenging.”

The best initial response to this is a sneer. As William Paley asked, “Who can refute a sneer?” After that, you can point out a few uncomfortable truths, starting with the one immediately below.

Class Features Aren’t Broken; You’re DMing Skills Are

This applies almost no matter what the class features. There is almost always no good reason to nix characters’ abilities. If you’re running a murder investigation, it’s bad form to rule that divination spells don’t work. Yes, that single speak with dead could very well bring the investigation to a quick end. So be it. In a similar vein, when the party tracks down the evil murderer, it’d be equally bad form for the paladin’s smite evil power to not work against him.

Characters’ abilities, feats, class features, et cetera, are the tools the players get to use to overcome the challenges the DM presents. Your players chose to play the characters they’re playing because they want to use those tools. That means that you’re not allowed to take those tools away without a very good and rare reason.

Most of the time, your players should count on getting to use those tools. Back to our ranger whose favored enemies are orcs and the undead. If that ranger isn’t encountering orcs and/or undead at least 50% of the time, then you need to stop and examine the adventures your running. Your ranger’s player deserves the opportunity to roleplay his ranger’s orc/undead-hate and to enjoy the bonuses the character gets against orcs and undead.

Letting the Characters Shine

Next time you’re prepping for your game, take stock of your players’ characters. What are those characters’ strengths in terms of feats, class features, skills, and so forth? Jot down at least one strength per character. Then, include some way for each character to revel in their respective strengths during the adventure. Pretend you’ve done what I just advised you to do, and this is what you came up with:

The Ranger: Favored enemy (undead).
The Wizard: Maxed out ranks in Linguistics.
The Cleric: Maxed out ranks in Knowledge (religion).
The Rogue: Just acquired slippers of spider climbing.

Here’re some sample challenges:

The Ranger: The BBEG is protected by a platoon of plague zombies.
The Wizard: The BBEG and its minions communicate via an ancient dialect of the Dark Tongue.
The Cleric: The BBEG and its minions are engaged in a complicated demon-summoning ritual.
The Rogue: The BBEG occupies a floating dais closer to the ceiling than the floor.

During the final battle against the BBEG, the ranger gets to have a field day mowing through the plague zombies. The wizard gets to make Linguistic checks to accurately understand the BBEG’s orders to its minions. The cleric not only gets to channel positive energy, but her keen insights provide the best way to disrupt the demon-summoning ritual. The rogue can most easily get to the floating dais. Everyone gets to use a character feature to contribute to the BBEG’s demise.

But Shouldn’t I Negate Characters’ Abilities at Least Some Time?

Yes, especially when dealing with intelligent enemies who’re expecting the sort of trouble the characters provide. The trick is to make the negation both reasonable and a challenge in itself.

For example, an undead BBEG who knows it’s being hunted by an undead-slaying ranger might recruit non-undead minions. If it’s sufficiently powerful, it might also be worried about enemies who can scry and teleport. There are reasonable defenses against both of these capabilities as well.

What is bad form, however, is to design adventures that negate character abilities in such a way as to railroad the players. Negating character abilities should paradoxically lead to greater variety in player tactics as those players seek ways to overcome the challenges presented by not being able to rely on their full arsenal.

Consider the undead BBEG again. It knows that it’s likely to face adventurers capable of teleporting. Not wanting enemies to show up at will in its lair, it employs an 11th-level cleric to ward key areas with forbiddance. Discovering the area is warded isn’t too difficult. Adventurers just need to try (and fail) to teleport into the lair. After this discovery, what choices do the characters have?

Well, they can just lump it and fight their way in the hard way. Or, better yet, they can discover that the BBEG’s cleric spends time away from the lair. This gives the characters the chance to nab the cleric and discover the password that permits them to enter the warded area without damage. Also, the characters might coerce the cleric into revealing that there is an area not warded against teleport within the lair proper. The BBEG uses this secret area for its own movement via planar means. Thus, after a side adventure, the characters have not only earned more experience, they’ve defeated one of the BBEG’s key minions and discovered a possible means of taking the BBEG by surprise.

Best of all, the ranger still gets to unleash his undead-slaying prowess.

Tags: adventure design, Game Geek

A column I wrote for Game Geek 9:

Have you watched TV lately? If so, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that in media res is all the rage. For example, check out any episode of The Good Guys on Hulu. The beginning of each episode isn’t necessarily the beginning of the story. It’s usually nearer the end of the plot, and most of the episode takes you back to the events as they unfolded leading up to the opening scene.

In media res hooks the viewer right away. It sets up an exciting situation to generate interest in what led up to that point in time. I am compelled to watch the entire episode of The Good Guys because I want to find out how Jack and Dan are going to survive the exploding dynamite while pinned down by enemy gunfire inside the storage container.

Just as in media res hooks the viewer, it can also hook the player when used in an adventure. Care must be exercised, however. The type of in media res used in many television shows, for example, often won’t work in an RPG scenario. This is because most of the episode is an extended flashback, and flashbacks in an adventure can be railroad tracks that rob players of meaningful choices.

For an example of in media res that would work in an adventure, consider the classic Thundarr the Barbarian episode “The Prophecy of Peril”. At the beginning of this episode, Thundarr, Ariel, and Ookla engage in a pitched battle against the wizard Vashtar’s hench-robots. Our heroes have stolen a magical gem from Vashtar and are trying to escape his citadel. Thanks to some timely exposition from Vashtar, we learn that the gem holds the secret to defeating him, and that this is why Thundarr and company have taken the gem. Thundarr, Ariel, and Ookla escape Vashtar, and then the trio spend the rest of the episode acting on the plot hook the gem represents.

This is a type of in media res that can work in an RPG scenario. Let’s break the idea down into some necessary components.

The Ultimate Goal

Every adventure has some sort of terminal objective. The PCs have a goal they wish to reach. They want to reveal the prince as a traitor. They seek the fabled tome of knowledge. The stars are ready to align and unleash the Old Ones unless the Elder Sign is affixed to some dread portal. When designing an in media res adventure, determine the ultimate goal and at least one step crucial to meeting it that can be combined with an action scene. Here’re some examples expanding on the previous three sample ultimate goals.

Reveal the Traitor: The PCs start the adventure in shackles in the rolling brig of a galley bound for an infamous slave port. Fortunately, one PC has a handy means of escape, such as a hidden lockpick. The PCs must free themselves, overcome the villains on the galley, and return to civilization.

Find the Tome of Knowledge: The PCs have just recovered a piece of an ancient map leading to the lost ruins in which the tome lies hidden. Unfortunately, their exit has just been detected by the feral man-apes that guard the map’s location.

Stop the Old Ones: The PCs sit in a stately study about to meet a famed scholar who can help them learn the location of the Elder Sign. The scholar enters the study when deranged cultists burst in through the skylights.

Exposition

After the initial conflict is resolved, it’s time to fill in the players. The exposition portion is the PC background material that happened “off-camera” and led up to the opening conflict. It should include all of the information the PCs would have reasonably had that led them to the precarious position in which they just found themselves. For example:

Reveal the Traitor: The PCs had been on their way to meet a lady-in-waiting believed to have evidence of the prince’s perfidy. When the PCs arrived at the rendezvous in the upstairs private room of an inn, they found not the lady, but an ambush by a press gang. The PCs were overpowered and woke up in the hold of a slave galley. The PCs must act quickly. The lady said she had evidence that the prince planned to imprison his recently deceased brother’s heirs as the first step to seizing the throne.

Find the Tome of Knowledge: The PCs were hired by the Golden Key Scholars to retrieve the tome of knowledge. A fell plague sweeps the land, caused by some evil sorcery. The tome of knowledge holds the secrets to stopping the plague. The PCs were given one piece of an ancient map that led them to a ruined library deep in feral man-ape territory. Now with the second map piece, the PCs have learned the last known resting place of the tome.

Stop the Old Ones: The PCs recently rescued a maiden from the clutches of sinister cultists. Evidence on site revealed that the cultists were part of a larger group seeking to unleash an unspeakable evil. One of the PCs knew the famed scholar by reputation, and the heroes sought his advice. Once the PCs defeat the attackers, the meeting with the famed scholar can go on as planned, assuming the scholar lives.

Conflict & Resolution

Here’s where you run the bulk of the adventure just like you normally would. The PCs already have their plot hook and adventure background. Build on the events, villains, and hints contained in the opening scene and the exposition.

This sort of in media res technique works with nearly any type of campaign. Whether you’re running an epic adventure path, a one-shot module, or the ultimate sandbox, you can adjust your scenarios so that they start with an action scene.

Tags: adventure design, Game Geek

I wrote this for Game Geek 7:

“‘If the player’s [sic] can’t do it, neither can I’ is sort of my rule (though obviously, there are exceptions).”

So wrote a poster in a recent thread in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game forums. I’ve heard many DMs express this ideal, invariably advancing it as some sort of laudable concession to the spirit of fair play. On the surface, the sentiment does seem praiseworthy. Who could object to fairness, to a level playing field, to all the players (including the DM) using the same rules the same way?

Well, I could, because RPGs aren’t the kind of games that expect DMs and players to be equal to each other. Permit me to explain.

Some Rules Aren’t Rules

Right off, let’s note that the “if the players can’t do it, neither can the DM” (ITPCDINCTDM, for short) rule isn’t really a rule. Note the ubiquitous qualifier that, of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Who gets to decide what the exceptions are? The DM. A rule that the DM can choose to enforce, expand, contract, or ignore whenever an exception rears its head isn’t really a rule.

Perhaps a metaphor will help. Imagine a prison with one cell, one inmate, and one guard who has the key to the cell’s door. Now imagine that the inmate and guard are the same person. Not much of a prison, huh? That’s what the ITPCDINCTDM rule is like.

What’s more, I’ve yet to actually see the ITPCDINCTDM rule in any RPG’s rules. Admittedly, I’ve not read every single RPG out there. (Who has?) Still, I’ve been around RPGs since about 1978, and I’ve at least dabbled in dozens of systems. So, sure, ITPCDINCTDM could actually be a rule in some game somewhere. If so, I’d be willing to bet that an official rules expression of ITPCDINCTDM would end up just being an example of the one-man prison metaphor.

Why Have the ITPCDINCTDM Rule?

As mentioned above, a sense of fairness is the motive. Everyone uses the same rules the same way (except, of course, for all of those DM-defined exceptions, not to mention explicit cases in the rules where the rules aren’t same for players and DMs). Unfortunately, ITPCDINCTDM misjudges the nature of RPGs. Consequently, what rises from a noble intention ends up being little more than a nice sentiment. The underlying arbitrariness of ITPCDINCTDM undermines the fairness the rule supposedly serves.

Why Not Have the ITPCDINCTDM Rule?

Aside from ITPCDINCTDM not really being a rule, it’s a rule that misjudges the nature of RPGs. All players using the exact same rules is a key feature of competitive games. Consider a game of Risk. Every player uses the same rules without exceptions because the game is competitive. There’s going to be one winner, and everyone else loses. If one player decides to use different rules from everyone else, then that player is cheating. The same applies to checkers, football, and five card stud.

RPGs are not competitive games. There isn’t a winner or a loser. Rather, RPGs are cooperative. Every player (including the DM) cooperates to create an entertaining story. The rules assist the storytelling, to be sure, but that’s only because there needs to be some mechanism to determine resource management and the success or failure of story elements.

The rules provide a structure for the players’ characters to ensure that they all use the same resource management and success/failure mechanisms. This structure sets the characters’ abilities in relative balance one with the other. The DM sets up situations to challenge how well the players manage their resources and exploit their characters’ strengths in order to tilt the success/failure mechanisms in their favor. Consequently, the challenges set up by the DM need to work within the parameters of the game’s system or else meaningful collaboration can’t happen. But this collaboration does not mean the DM is limited to the structure meant to balance the characters with each other.

How About a Specific Example?

A frequent complaint about d20 System games is that it is very difficult to create a single enemy capable of providing a challenge to an adventuring group. In order to keep the fighter-types from hitting too much, the BBEG’s armor class needs to be jacked up to the point no one can hit him. To keep the magic-types from taking out the BBEG with a single spell means jacking up his saving throws so much that many spells end up being ineffective. The BBEG creation process ends up looking more like an intricate system of checks and balances requiring endless scouring through a pile of books looking for the just the right ITPCDINCTDM combination of stats, feats, and equipment.

To fix the horror of BBEG creation, I glommed a section of Bad Axe Games‘s excellent Trailblazer and tinkered it a bit. What I came up with are these special rules for solo monsters:

* Do not adjust the solo’s CR.
* Multiply its hit points by the number of PCs it is facing to create “chunks” of hit points (e.g. four PCs, 4 x hit points in four chunks).
* If a PC drops, scratch off an entire chunk of hit points unless doing so will render the solo unconscious or dead.
* Start the creature with 2 Action Dice per PC it is facing. (My Action Dice rules are similar to those in d20 Modern.)
* Add the Extra Action extraordinary ability to the solo’s stat block. (See below.)

Extra Action (Ex) Once per round at initiative count minus 10, the solo gets a single extra standard action. If the adjustment reduces the initiative court for the extra action to zero or less, the solo forfeits its extra action that round. For example, if the solo’s initiative roll totals 15 it gets to act normally at 15 and then gets an extra standard action at 5.

I’ve shared these rules several times in Internet forums. Every single time I’ve done so, at least one person devoted to ITPCDINCTDM shows up to accuse me of not playing the game correctly. “Those rules aren’t fair! Everyone has to use the same rules!” the detractors exclaim.

Bollocks!

RPGs aren’t set up to be fair, meaning set up to require ITPCDINCTDM. They’re set up to help people kill time creating entertaining stories in a collaborative manner. The RPG is not a competition in which the DM pits his library of splatbooks and optimization talents against the players’ splatbook-optimized characters. Consequently, everyone does not have to use the same rules if doing so deforms the collaborative nature of the game into a DM versus player arms race.

If you’ve stayed with me this far, let me offer some closing advice to DMs.

Take a look at the games you’ve been running. Is the way you’re running the game encouraging collaboration between you and your players? If not, why not? Is ITPCDINCTDM or something like it lurking in your game’s subtext? If so, think seriously about rooting out those anti-collaborative elements and replacing them with other elements. You’ll end up with a better game, and you’re players may actually thank you for it.

Tags: Game Geek

Another column I wrote, this time for Game Geek 6:

All sorts of horrible monsters stalk the average fantasy world. Against many of these creatures, the common people have little defense. (Heck, even a irritable cat poses threat to most commoners’ lives and limbs.) How do the common folk manage to stay alive when a single mob of shadows could lay waste to the average hamlet?

Adventurers are a big help. It seems like any time a supernatural problem arises in a community, some adventuring party comes along to smite evil and take its stuff. This makes for some great plot hooks and leads into some memorable adventures, but it doesn’t really satisfy on the macro level. Adventurers aren’t supposed to be a dime a dozen. They can’t be everywhere all the time.

What to do?

Well, I could just continue to ignore the issue. After all, it’s hardly a game-breaker. RPGs have worked fine for decades without placing much emphasis on the problems of lowly commoners. The game isn’t about them. The adventurers occupy the spotlight, and rightfully so. Still, for my current Pathfinder campaign, I want to add an extra layer of verisimilitude (which is not be confused with realism). A campaign world is verisimilitudinous (yes, that’s a real word) to the extent that it encourages and assists the willing suspension of disbelief.

Thus, I sat down and answered this question: What common means of defense against supernatural monsters exist? Here’s what I came up with.

Fire

Watch just about any horror movie. Someone’s probably going to set some thing on fire in order to destroy it. Fire has a long history of use as a purifier. In the game, fire gets deployed a lot, especially against regenerating monsters and when taking out groups of foes conveniently clustered together in fireball formation. Other monsters, such as mummies, have well-known vulnerabilities to fire.

Some creatures have a lesser vulnerability to fire. Against fire-based attacks, these monsters suffer +1 point of damage per damage die. Fire-users need to take care, however. Not all lesser vulnerabilities to fire apply to mundane fire. In these cases, only magical fire causes extra damage.

Holy Symbols

What could be more iconic than the stalwart monster hunter holding a vampire at bay with a boldly presented crucifix? The game system puts this iconic image into play in a cleric’s ability to channel energy to thwart the undead. That’s all fine and dandy for clerics and other characters with the necessary class feature, but what about Farmer Brown?

Anyone can present a holy symbol associated with their faith in an attempt to hold supernatural evil at bay. Doing so is a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity targeted against vulnerable creatures within a 30-foot spread who have both line of sight to the presenter and the holy symbol.

The presenter makes a Will save which is opposed by the Will saves of the affectable creatures. If an affectable creature’s Will save is less than the presenter’s Will save, then the affectable creature is dazed for 1 round. If the presenter scores a natural 20 on his Will save, all affectable creatures within range are dazed for 1 round regardless of their respective Will saves. The presenter can attempt to hold supernatural evil at bay repeatedly.

One cannot attempt this mundane use of a holy symbol while using the channel energy class feature.

Iron

Just about the only creatures in the game vulnerable to iron are the fey, and even then it only serves to get past damage reduction and is limited to the rather expensive cold iron type of iron. Again, this doesn’t seem of much use to Farmer Brown. He’s not likely to do well in a fight to begin with, and cold iron is out of his price range.

Let’s broaden our scope a bit. As any fan of Supernatural knows, iron also works quite well against incorporeal undead. Since I just adore Supernatural (as do my players), I can’t think of a single good reason not to incorporate this television element into my current campaign.

Normal iron’s properties affect the fey and the incorporeal undead differently:

Normal iron and fey: Normal iron doesn’t bypass DR, but it does harm fey creatures. A normal iron weapon enjoys a +1 bonus to damage rolls against fey. An iron implement (such as a horseshoe) that is held against a fey’s skin for one full round burns the fey creature for 1d6 points of damage.

Normal iron and incorporeal undead: Normal iron weapons (including improvised weapons) cannot inflict damage on an incorporeal undead, but they can disrupt its form. Striking an incorporeal undead with an iron weapon forces the monster to make a DC 15 Will save. If it fails, the incorporeal undead is disrupted.

While disrupted, the incorporeal undead can only take a single move action each round. It becomes invisible and cannot be harmed by weapons of any type. Magic and channeling energy can still harm a disrupted incorporeal undead. Each round at the beginning of its turn, a disrupted incorporeal undead gets to make a DC 15 Will save as a free action. If it succeeds, it is no longer disrupted and may act normally. A disrupted incorporeal undead gets a +1 bonus on this Will save for each round that it has been disrupted.

Running Water

Some supernatural creatures cannot cross running water. They can’t even use bridges or fly over running water. This is one more reason why most communities are built near rivers or streams.

When confronted with running water, a supernatural creature with this vulnerability can attempt a DC 15 Will save. Success allows it to cross the running water, but the creature is treated as if staggered during the crossing. Failure means the monster simply cannot cross under its own power. It could, however, have a minion or vehicle carry it, but during the crossing the creature is treated as helpless. The monster is only ever allowed one saving throw to cross any particular body of running water.

Salt

Salt purifies and preserves. In some places during certain times in human history, salt has literally been worth its weight in gold. Without salt, food spoils more quickly and sickness and death await. Against certain supernatural creatures, salt has two uses. First, it can form an effective barrier. Salt can also cause damage.

Salt barrier: As a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity, a line of salt can be poured across a single side of a 5-foot square. Creatures susceptible to salt cannot move across this line using any innate means. This includes all modes of movement as well as spell-like and supernatural abilities. The salt line does not prevent the creature from attacking across the line, however, so salt users had best move back to avoid reach.

Also, while the creature cannot directly affect the line of salt, it can use a variety of means to break the line’s integrity. A gust of wind can blow the salt away. A bucket of water can wash it away. Thus, in many instances, a salt barrier provides only temporary security.

Contact with salt: Salt susceptible monsters who are exposed to salt’s touch for one full round suffer 1d6 points of damage from the contact.

Silver

Silver sits in pretty much the same boat as iron. It’s useful to bypass damage reduction, and that’s about it.

Creatures without DR #/silver that are vulnerable to silver suffer +1 points of damage from silver weapons (including improvised weapons like a silver candlestick holder). A silver item (such as a silver piece) that is held against a vulnerable creature’s skin for one full round burns the creature for 1d6 points of damage.

Sunlight/Sunrise

The sun’s light chases away the darkness and the creatures who live in it. It is the most common defense against supernatural evil, even if one must survive for several hours before it can be put into play. In many folk tales and fantasy stories, all sorts of creatures can’t stand the light of day.

Several creatures already have sunlight vulnerability or light weakness. These game effects are well-defined. In my current campaign, I will expand the number of creatures with these traits. Also, there are some monsters for whom the touch of sunlight is quite deadly.

Petrified by Sunlight: A creature with this weakness that is touched by sunlight must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or be turned to stone (as flesh to stone). Of course, keeping the trolls talking all night can be a bit tricky.

Thresholds

Before inviting that handsome stranger into the house, make sure he’s not a vampire. Everyone know that once a vampire’s been invited, he has carte blanche to just show up whenever he wants. If anything is worse than an uninvited guest, it’s a guest that feeds on his host’s life energy.

Creatures with threshold weakness cannot enter a building unless invited. It doesn’t matter who invites the creature, nor is it relevant that the invitation is gained via deceit or magic. Of course, this weakness doesn’t prevent the creature from setting the building on fire or sending in its mob of brain-eating zombies.

Monsters suspectible to iron, salt, silver, and holy symbols can also be kept from entering a building if the appropriate item is affixed or poured near the various entrances. Hanging an iron horseshoe over the front door doesn’t just bring good luck. It also helps keep malicious fey out of the living room. One needs to take care that all potential entrances are so warded. The horseshoe over the front door won’t stop a bogie from entering through a window.

Putting all this into play

Since these are the commoner’s methods of defense against the supernatural, it stands to reason that the various methods are well-known. For my current campaign, I need to decide ahead of time which creatures possess which vulnerabilities. Then, I need to let my players know this information before it becomes relevant.

Let’s say our next game session involves the PCs heading to a logging camp that’s been having trouble with members of the Unseelie Court. The PCs know before they leave town that they will be facing evil fey. In general, fey have problems even with normal iron. The PCs are advised to stock up on iron weapons and to bring along a sack of iron nails to affix near building entrances.

Let’s further imagine that one of the Unseelie sighted in the area is a redcap bogie. In my campaign, redcap bogies are so wicked that they can be held at bay by a boldly presented holy symbol. This vital bit of information should almost certainly be shared with the players.

Once these customized bits of campaign fluff and crunch have been put into play, they need to be documented for consistency’s sake. That way, the next time the PCs encounter a redcap bogie, I’ll remember that, yes, the devout fighter can whip out a holy symbol and have a chance to daze the monster before it can gut the party’s wizard.

Tags: Game Geek

From Game Geek 5 by yours truly:

Nerdrage for sandbox campaigns seems to be at an all-time high. Pop around the Internet for a bit, and you’ll find blogs, forum threads, and products singing sandbox praises and offering advice ranging from sage to silly. I’m a pretty level-headed gamer, and even I’ve gone a bit ga-ga over this “new” trend in RPGing.

Of course, sandbox games aren’t a new thing. The revered Keep on the Borderlands from way back in 1979 was rather sandboxy. As is often the case, everything old becomes new again. In part, I think the resurgence of the sandbox owes at least a little to the dominance of adventure path style campaigns, where the heroes embark on some epic 20-level quest with a more-than-less linear plot structure. I’ve played my share of adventure paths, and they can be great fun.

But they often seem to lack a certain flexibility. The path might not be quite so rigid as A before B before C, but few of them permit the players to scramble up the alphabet in whatever order to their hearts’ content. What’s more, after a while, the path to adventure can turn into something more like a rut to the next sub-MacGuffin needed to reach the Ultimate Prize.

The Old School Revival (OSR) may also have something to do with the sandbox’s new popularity. I’ve not done anything approaching a scientific study, but I get the impression that the OSR has reached a fevered pitch in response to 4E’s presumptive hegemony over fantasy RPGs. Rather than new and shiny, many gamers voice a preference for old and shiny combined with fond memories of the supposed lack of railroad plot-tracks in modules from 20-30 years ago.

By positioning the sandbox against adventure paths, the sandbox’s advocates often emphasize the lack of linear plot, player freedom to set and achieve goals, and the more realism inherent in a world that doesn’t scale up in level with the PCs. Of course, this is a simplification, and adventure pathers can be quick to point out defects, such as that sandbox campaigns suffer from directionlessness leading to boredom by placing too much emphasis on player-directed action.

As is most often the case, the truth lies between the two extremes on the via media. Let’s put aside the pros and cons of sandboxing, and instead look at a concrete example of how to set up a beginning campaign using real-world history as a starting point.

Real-world history offers certain advantages. First, it establishes a geography and overarching timeline for things that happen regardless of PC actions. Second, the people within the historical narrative are a rich resource for NPCs, power groups, and adversaries. Finally, the historical event gives the players something they can sink their teeth into. The event presents familiar terrain for the imagination to get lost in.

Thus, we reach our first step: picking a historical incident to form our starting point. Fortunately, I’ve got an example ready to use. Click over to this blog post and read about how La Salle became one of the most famous Europeans murdered in the New World by other Europeans. I’ll wait for you to get back.

Hello again! Let’s break La Salle’s story down into something usable for a sandbox campaign by pulling out the elements we’ll need for our players and their PCs. La Salle’s departure from Europe in July 1684 looks like a good starting point.

Geography

La Salle’s voyage hit three points worth noting: the starting port-of-call, Petit Goave in Haiti, and Matagorda Bay in Texas. Any suitable fantasy port city serves for the starting point. This is where the PCs enter the story. Plot hooks lure them aboard one of La Salle’s ships. Google is your friend for the other two locations. Maps of Haiti and the Matagorda Bay area are easy to find. Select a couple that fit your needs, save them as graphics files, and do a little editing. For simple changes, no special programs or skills are needed. MS Paint and/or IrfanView work just fine.

Once you’ve got your maps, place specific encounter areas, sites of interest, and so forth. Don’t go overboard on the details (unless that’s your thing). All you really need at first is an overview and enough options to get your players to pick up the adventure ball and start running with it.

Even though it’s technically not geography, don’t forget to get your hands on some deckplans for ships. If you’ve got the gumption, draw them out on posterboard and cut them out to create ready-to-use floorplans for shipboard action.

Allies & Enemies

After reading the essay, I identified a few key figures to use as NPCs. Obviously, we need La Salle. The voyages needs a chaplain, so why not recruit La Salle’s brother Jean? Crevel de Moranget, La Salle’s hot-headed nephew, rounds out our list of allies.

The voyage starts with Etienne Liotot, ship’s surgeon, and the Duhaut brothers already present. These three need not begin the campaign as bad guys. They turn against La Salle after several weeks of enduring La Salle’s incompetence. More risible fellows include the pirate Hiems and the other rabble taken aboard in Petit Goave. Generic bad guys include hostile Karankawas and Spanish pirates. Generic good guys? The various crew members and travelers aboard the ships.

Avoid making good-guy NPCs more competent than the PCs, especially in La Salle’s case. NPC classes are most suitable for nearly all of them. Keep in mind that one need not pile on the levels to make an NPC capable in his job. In the fantasy d20 System, a 5th-level expert is likely near the top of his field.

Hazards

La Salle’s voyage to the New World suffered several setbacks. Here’s the short list: damage to a ship requiring repairs before sailing could continue, gales and other bad weather, disease, pirates, deserters, lack of food and clean water, and hostile natives.

Each of these can be summarized in a paragraph or two, perhaps printed on handy index cards or some other organizational tool. Toss in a few “random” encounters, and you end up with several events to liven up the trip. Take care to customize these to highlight the PCs’ competencies, foibles, and interests. After all, the story is about them, not La Salle and the other NPCs.

For example, just because Spanish pirates captured the real Saint-Francois doesn’t mean your campaign must follow suit. If the PCs manage to defeat the pirates, so much the better.

Meta-Events

Toss in two or three events that happen no matter what. For example, if you want the campaign to include getting shipwrecked, then ships have got to wreck. The PCs aren’t omni-competent. When the time is right, declare that bad weather has run a ship aground.

Remember that throughout you’re not prepping plots. You’re setting up situations into which the PCs can interject themselves in order to shape the course of events. How do the PCs react to La Salle’s incompetence? Do they take over the expedition, offer their services as advisors, or just ignore things and hope it all works out? Do they take part in a murder plot against La Salle? When Hiems and his disreputable cohorts come aboard in Petit Goave, what do the PCs do? When attacked by hostile natives, do the PCs wage war or act as diplomats? Et cetera, et cetera.

Dive into the sandbox with appropriate preparation, and the possibilities are nearly endless.

Tags: Game Geek, Sandbox Campaigns