Sandbox vs. Linear... Ready... FIGHT!!!

When I started this current effort, I was presented with a dilemma – which approach will give a group of extremely imaginative (but completely inexperienced) gamers the most satisfaction: a linear, adventure-module-type campaign, or an open-ended sandbox?

It’s probably not too shocking to find that, so far, I’m doing a bit of both. I started out, however, by going hard in the “sandbox” direction.

Using Land of Nod as a guide, I stuffed a ton of adventure seeds and hooks into my 400mile x 400mile region of the world; all told, it was easily forty or so, not including more complex locations like cities. It was, frankly, a bit overwhelming for me as the DM… I could only imagine what it was going to be like as a brand-new player, being inundated with an avalanche of material to pick through…

At present, as I said, I’m doing a bit of both: I’m stitching together a couple of long-term storylines using modified versions of boxed adventures, but I’m peppering the environment with a selection of adventure hooks that can send the PC’s off on flights of tangent.

I have also found that there’s a third option. As a fan of Jungian synchronicity, I’ve been delighted to discover that random encounters can be made to fit a wide range of storylines if you’re willing to throw caution to the wind and embrace the madness. Dire wolves are no longer just a range of numbers on a chart; to the players, they automatically become obvious agents of Evil Genius X (whether or not that’s true, of course, is borne out over time). Taken to an extreme (and using suggestions such as Daddy Grognard’s that involve the tracking and mapping of major random encounters), you effectively have a sandbox environment that generates itself…

This is all undoubtedly “old hat” to a lot of folks who might read this blog, along with much of the material that’s going to be posted here. All I can say is that this is all either new or fresh to me, so I hope it’s interesting to read about somebody progressing through the various stages of discovery…

Inauguration Day

So, here's where I start getting specific. I'm going to (briefly) recap the action of the gaming sessions, as best as my feeble powers of recall will allow.

{At the time of this writing, some of my guys haven't really committed to character names. As a result, I'll have to go back and add them as I go along. For now, they are Napoleon, Hoko Goldma, Furok, and Nyatar.}

I feel very lucky, since everybody basically chose a cornerstone archetype and went with it: ranger, thief, mage, cleric. I was so afraid that I'd be dealing solely with barbarians and assassins and druids, but my fears were unfounded.

The action starts with young Nyatar, the half-orc cleric of Horus, the lawful god of vengeance and storms and war. (No, it's not the Deities & Demigods version of Horus, it's Land of Nod entity of the same moniker...) He's from a very warm climate near the equator, in the city of Ibis in the region of Uban. He is a newly-minted novice, eager to prove his worth to a skeptical heirarchy. His father, a gypsy, had dropped him off at a monastery outside the city, and he has been raised as an acolyte of Horus with every expectation that he'd fail. Not only did he refuse to fail, but he flourished under the scrutiny and is now being sent out to assist the priest of Horus that attends a diplomatic mission in the far northwest of the continent (think Juneau, Alaska, meets low medieval York).

After a sea voyage of two months, he arrives outside the whitewashed walls of the city-state of Lyonesse. Upon entering the city, he discovers the the head of his order has succumbed to a quickly-acting wasting disease. The head of the Ubani delegation must send away for a new head cleric, for which a conclave must be called; all told, it might be two months or more before Ken's new superior arrives. In the meantime, he's left to acquaint himself to the local culture as best as he can. He decides to take a spin around the city, while deciding what to do...

A young elf named Napoleon (I swear that I'm going to beat that name out of him) grows up in an elvish enclave, hidden among the Hibernian isles of the northern ocean. His father's a highly-respected physician and healer who dearly wants the young man to follow in his own footsteps; unfortunately, no matter how strong his desires, the young man simply shows no real interest in medicine. Predictably, the bored young elf falls in with a rather roguish peer who introduces him to the rather seedy side of social interaction.

After a few petty actions and relatively harmless larcenies committed among the stoic elven neighbors, Napoleon and his companion decide it's time to explore the wider world beyond their isolated enclave, but his fellow traveler leaves him behind in order to skip town early. He's finally able to book passage to Lyonesse (seeing a pattern here?); on board, he befriends an old hand named Jake who's seeking better fortunes among the burgeoning metal- gem-strikes of the far north, collectively known as The Faces.

The ship arrives outside the beautiful white-washed walls of the Jewel of the North on a clear late-spring day. He gets into line with dozens of other hopefuls, seeking to pay the fare and enter the city. Once inside, he begins making various fruitless inquiries until the siren song of a town crier reaches his ears:

"Seeking!... Adventurers of all stripes and sizes... Stout of heart and steady of hand... Seekers of fame and glory!... Come ye to the Yellow Queen and acquaint yourself with Archibald, of the Order of Pluto..."

{To be continued...}

(***Note***: credit for a great deal of this material must be given to other sites and bloggers, to say nothing of all the stuff that I've ripped off from common literature. I am chiefly indebted to the work of Matt Stater, over at Land of Nod; please check him out, and buy his stuff on Lulu.com...)

Questions, questions, questions...

Cool series of questions from a cool blogger, Zak Sabbath. Check him out...

My answers are below:

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

Probably the stretch of improvisation I had to do in order to expend the 24 hours between uses of "plane-shift", while on my own and totally outgunned.

2. When was the last time you GMed?

Monday, 1/16.

3. When was the last time you played?

As a player? Wow... 2005?...

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.

The garrison commander of a besieged large (1,000+) town pulls a Benedict Arnold, and the bewildered PC's are now thrust into organizing the defense.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

Provide taunting mood music, or imply a countdown.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

Last time, smoked almonds and red wine. Aw yeah.

7. Do you find GM-ing physically exhausting?

Yeah, but it gets easier. Ask me the next time I run a session that falls flat... That's exhausting...

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

Upon losing all his cash to a cutpurse, rather than simply doing a song & dance at the nearest tavern, his bard proceeds to scam his way into a wealthy merchant's home and seduce his daughter... Didn't really see that coming.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

It's joyous to see both happen, in quick succession: when everybody's laughing their asses off, and then they get hit with something that makes everything *stop*. Priceless.

10. What do you do with goblins?

Make them entertaining, or make them really fucking devious.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

The de Sade graffiti trick from "Quills", but with blood instead of poop. (Look it up, kids)

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

Not terribly hilarious, but I had a great time the first opportunity I had to start throwing little notes exclusively to one character about something going on in his head. My noobs hadn't seen that, yet...

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?

Planescape: Well of Worlds. Looking at throwing some major curve-balls at my gang of noobs.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

I would buy any product that hired Eddie Campbell as its illustrator.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

Yes, and it's a very, very cool feeling...

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)

Plunging my noobs into a dungeon created solely with Paul Jaquays' "Central Casting" system. Put together some connective tissue, and it's a hell of a ride.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

A retired nuclear cooling tower. Awesome reverb, and quite a bit of underlying contemporary anxiety about one's general well-being...

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

The old Twilight: 2000 series and Ars Magica. Going from meticulous number-crunching to a total devotion to story development.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

Shakespeare, Joseph Campbell, and High On Fire.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

Imaginative, and un-self-conscious.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?

Nightmares. I've used some exceptionally vivid imagery from horrific dream experiences to describe specific elements of game action. Works pretty good.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?

A really good planet-scale terrain generator that's not dependent on computers.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?

Not really, but I'm working on changing that.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, mage...

I've got a bit of ex-po-ZEE-shun to take care of, here, so I'll bite the bullet and get on with it.

With a group of players who haven't had gaming take over their lives for long stretches of time, I needed a way to introduce the elements slowly, but not so slowly as to be utterly boring. (To be fair, one of the players had played before, but using one of the later editions....)

I decided to use the edition that I was most familiar with - 1E - as the basis for the game, liberally seasoned with some stuff from Labyrinth Lord, various blogs like Land of Nod, Daddy Grognard, and Hill Cantons, and even some 2E stuff. Frankly, I've never been enamored of the later versions and the first edition demands engagement of the imagination, something that my particular players crave.

I picked a free fractal terrain generator (I forget which, at the moment) and worked up a planetary biosphere. I found a series of tables for generating a large-scale history somewhere on the interwebs, and proceeded to mold my world. The randomness of both types really plays to my taste for Jungian synchronicity: I just generate the random elements and trust my imagination and improv skills to provide the links. Love it...

Anyway, I worked up a basic cosmology founded on principals of fundamental elements gradually becoming more fractured and complex, and voila!... It not exactly the Silmarillion, but it'll do. I'm pretty proud of it, actually.

For specific cities and sandbox elements I'm heavily indebted to Matt Stater over at Land of Nod, one of the smartest and cleanest blogs out there. (My players are advised to ignore this paragraph, upon pain of... um... pain.)

Throughout this whole process, I've only had one major concern: over-thinking everything. I'm sorely tempted to stuff all kinds of details into the plans of a session, and then beat myself up for leaving something out or not anticipating something. I've seen it written elsewhere, and I now consider it to be the cardinal rule of GM-ing: Just Have Fun. Do your prep work, but remember to enjoy the game. You're playing, too...

What... is your favorite *color*?...

So... what's all this, then?

About a year ago, my super-cool (but super-busy) ladywife mentioned to me in passing that she might - might - be interested in gaming with me at some point. This was a highly unexpected offer, as she'd really not shown much specific interest in my past gaming activities; I was a heavy-volume gamer when we'd first met, fifteen or more years ago, and it was by far my most intense non-academic activity. Now, here she was, actually encouraging me to get back into the hobby... inconceivable.

I, of course, leaped at the opportunity. Having dribbled away my books over the years, I began snatching up all of the old 1st Edition volumes on eBay, Abebooks, Powell's, etc. I got books I'd never had before, including the old boxed sets for Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms. I went nuts, and bought the entire T1-4, A1-4, G1-3, D1-3, and Q1 series of adventure modules. I found out about Judges Guild (previously unknown) and snapped up vintage modules and expansions dating back to the mid-seventies. I have no idea how much money I spent before my wife told me that, due to a new promotion, she didn't really have any disposable free-time to spend on regular gaming. I chid myself for getting so carried away, and put my books in storage...

... But then, a wondrous thing happened...

I happen to do nonprofit theatre work at the grassroots (i.e. "no money") level with a group of extremely talented twenty-somethings; at forty, I cling to the analogy of Burroughs hanging out with Kerouac and Ginsberg. I also happened to drop a D&D reference at a social occasion, for whom it was, no doubt, an anachronistic curiosity. The next thing I know, I'm DM-ing steadily for the first time ever, with a group of first-time players, who happen to be post-adolescent and exceptionally bright.

(A quick digression: if you ever get the opportunity to game with theatre folk, you should definitely try it. So long as there's no impulse to be ironic or sarcastic, they're well-suited to the imaginative aspects and more than willing to throw themselves into character. It may not be your cup of tea, but hey... what could it hurt?...)

I was really nervous at first about whether or not I could tell the story in a compelling manner, or whether anyone would feel slighted or bored. Now I've got seven budding D&D junkies on my hands, in two converging groups. I'm only about four sessions into it, but I'm having the time of my life...

The Past is Prolapse...

I always tend to start with disclaimers, both verbally and in writing, and this instance looks to be no different.

This is, in fact, the first blog that I've ever written, contributed to, or begun. I've done comments, on occasion, but this is definitely the furthest that I've ventured in the new frontier of Infinite Visibility and Exposure. As with a lot of things in my life, the novelty of the experience is one of the primary motivators; as soon as that ebbs, however, the impetus to contribute on a regular basis is likely to wane. I'll try to compensate for that, but I make no promises...

My second disclaimer is that I'm terrible at exposition - the art of laying down the background of a situation without boring your audience to tears. My writing is kind of like my thinking: under-structured and over-impulsive. When I've got new relevant details for old posts, I'll try to go back and make edits. Again, though, no promises...

I guess that this is the point where I should get to the point.

I'm starting this because I have a growing volume of material for which I don't really have a forum of expression, and that I don't want to simply lose to the sands of the hourglass... namely, the goings-on in my D&D sessions.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the reading of this kind of blog was what got me back into the gaming community after an absence of more than a dozen years. Now, I'm enjoying the game so much that I want to set this material into a framework that's accessible to my players and the interested public at large (no matter how small that group may be).

Feel free to comment, to suggest, and to leave opinions. I'm not sure what else I should be asking of a readership, other than patience and civility, so I'll go ahead and request those two items.

For now, I should probably stop starting, and start doing. Thank you for your consideration.