Sandbox Choices

I wrote a post asking where the beginner sandbox was.  And I'm still interested in the ideas in that post.  But I realized it assumes players of low level characters will want to make choices.  Do they?

I realized, with my players, that they know and I know that there will never be a walk-in-the-dungeon-and-pick-up-the-money with no struggle situation.  The whole point of the evening's entertainment is the risky delve.  So why would it matter if they go to risky dungeon A versus risky dungeon B?  Here are some thoughts:

• With my dwarven outpost type dungeon they can choose the devil they know.  The dungeon will still be dangerous but knowing what locations they are looking for can make things less dangerous.
• They might want to obtain certain items.  I made an offhand comment about a location having ash shields (I think) they could be splintered to prevent magical damage and was surprised at how that became the focal goal of the group.
• They might want to learn certain abilities.  I think it was Zak who had the idea of letting feats be learned in different places in the world.  So if you want to walk across water the guy that knows that is near location A.

 And I realize the choice is not so much a choice between dungeons but things in the world the players might want that happen to be near the dungeons. So that could be gear or animals, for example.  I remember Chgowiz had a campaign where there was a tin shortage and players attacked a band of orcs to get their lantern.

• Regions might be known for particular livestock like hardy horses, camels, fighting dogs, or trained apes.  And if you want them you need to go there to get them.
• Maybe particular types of hirelings.  Though, it seems a stretch that low level parties would make travel decisions based on that.
• I feel like I posted this, but maybe I just thought about, locations players might want to visit and revisit because of an immovable service-- libraries to test rumors, magical anvils, or pools that give fairly predictable and positive results.  Also, locations to get rid of curses and identify magic items.
• Guild membership, if it has benefits attractive enough, might be a draw to the location where they can join.
• Geographic or climactic flavor might be a factor.  Maybe several sessions in a swamp and anywhere dry will look better.
• I suppose this could apply to dungeon flavor too.  If the party is sick of battling undead, orcs might look like easy targets for a change.  But this and the last assumes some experience, and how much will low level parties have?
• Roleplaying could be a key for some, though probably not my crew who sort of play avatars of themselves.  I mean if your character has a background visiting the family lands might be a reason to go somewhere.
• A big urban area could be a draw because of the services only found there, like selling magic items.  Or if you are using carousing of any sort that pays off better for bigger cities.
• I suppose treasure maps and keys found in dungeon A could lead to relatively easy loot in location B.  But that seems less a choice between A and B and me as DM funneling them from one area to another.
• I suppose the choice could involve the lesser of two evils.  If their current location is going to be overrun or winter is coming, for example, they might want to move somewhere safer even if it isn't safe.

I'm sure there are more, let me know them in the comments.

Another problem is that for them to make these decisions they have to have a whole lot of information up front.  For example, I'm thinking now, if you had a domain-level endgame planned, experienced players might start maneuvering for allies from the start.  Or familiarizing themselves with various regions ripe for a new warlord or wizard.

Trying to convey information quickly is one reason I started making silhouettes.  I can put dogs and horses and such on the map so they see quickly what different regions offer.  Also a pointcrawl with picture insets would probably work better than the typical stew of fantasy names and a gazetteer.  But how would you show that, guy-who-teaches-water-walking is up north?  I'm not sure.  It could always come up in conversation with an NPC, but it also might not.

I think a common bit of advice might be to ask my players where they would want to go.  It sounds obvious.  But, heck people don't even know where they want to eat in the real world, or what they want for Christmas.  And, again, it is about knowledge.  My players don't know what's even possible in the fantasy world burbling in my head.  So I feel I need to make choices of my own and then communicate them to the players.

This isn't all just noodling.  My player's B-Team have reached the point where they need a map and I need to make something for Friday.

Anti-Stylites

Sort of shaped like this

I'll drop the in-game prose and just talk at you as a DM for this one.  I thought it would be cool to have religious hermits that, rather than living atop poles, lived down in holes.  Not caves-- think a bottle-shape carved from sandstone, the eremite living below with food lowered down and waste pulled out.

Now imagine a community of these holes close together.  They would probably do that to make it easier on the support folks.  Or maybe the support folks get inspired and carve out their own cells nearby.

  Now imagine all the support folk die of plague.  Or a war causes them to flee.  Plenty of creepy implications for our eremites.  Years later, players visit the valley/cave with all the hermit holes.  Some are filled with water.  Some have undead in them.  But all have a chance for holding holy items and texts.  Some might have mini libraries (no reason these hole dwellers need to be completely ascetic, maybe living underground is more symbolic).

You end up with something like B1's magic pools for players to investigate.  And I'm always interested in trying to put players in positions where they feel vulnerable as they explore-- like going down a hole alone.  Or, worse yet, submerging themselves in a water-filled hole.

26 Village Names

Let's take another shot at this.   I used this chart:

 which is just a simplified version of this Wikipedia page.
 
I tried much harder to make names that, while plausible, are not the names of prominent places.  I mostly did this by doing Google and Wikipedia Searches.  I may have missed some.

I want one name for each letter of the alphabet, mostly for mnemonic reasons (more on this soon).  I also wanted variety in both sounds and geographic features, assuming some of these names would actually be placed on a map near features that match their name.  I also tried to be careful about puns and awkward sounds, being aware that players and DM's will actually be saying these aloud to each other.

Eventually I think it would be cool to have a similar list for other languages/cultures, especially those that are more commonly associated with our psuedo-medieval worlds.  So German, French, Italian-- maybe slavic languages next, even Hungarian, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, Japanese.

The point is a small number of plausible names ready to go.  If you can provide names from one of those languages have at it.  In the mean time here's what I came up with:

Ashborough     (fort among ash trees)
Brey                   (hill island)
Caerdon            (hill fort)
Dunmouth        (bay fort)
Exeley               (clearing by water)
Finkirk             (holy church)
Gilworth          (ravine)
Holmden          (island hill)
Inverstead       (at the mouth of a river)
Jill's Green
Kelding            (people of the spring)
Langbury        (long, fortified enclosure)
Moss End        (in a swamp)
Nancarden      (ravine with stream and thicket)
Olchester        (old fort)
Polshaw          (wood by a lake)
Queensgate    (on a road)
Rutleigh          (woodland clearing)
Stanfield         (stony)
Tilly                 (hillock)
Ukney              (island)
Vale of Fearn  (valley)
Whelworth     (a mine)
EXeley-on-the-Wold (different Exeley by woods)
Yulcombe       (valley)
Zaywick

(Ashborough is there as a stand in for my own Fresno.  There's a 75% chance they'll steal your wagon if you visit.)

Anyway, I'd love to see you come up with 26 names of your own.  Maybe based on the area you live, your own constructed language, a different genre (like science fantasy or steam punk).

Village Names

I wanted to make a list of village names based on real geographic naming conventions.  I wanted them to sound plausible and capture some old British flavor with out being distractingly famous.  I just wanted 26 alphabetical ones for now.  Here's what I came up with:

Astwyth           (east)
Bradford         (broad ford)
Corby       
Drumchapel    (ridge)
Eastbourne     (stream)
Formby
Guildfirth        (wood)
Howe
Innbury
Jill-on-Weyr    (on a river)
Keld                (spring)
Langdale        (valley)
Monminster   (monastery)
Nantwich       (ravine with stream)
Olchester
Pendle            (hill)
Queensgate    (on a road)   
Richfield
Stamford        (stony ford)
Tunstead
Ukney             (island)
Villhurst         (wooded hill)
Whelworth     (mine)
EXley-on-Sea   (on the coast)
Yulecombe      (valley)
Zaywick          (bay)

Obviously I had to stretch a bit for the less common letters.  So, Brits, or any knowledgeable types, do they sound right?  Do some sound too big to be little villages, more like towns?  Do some sound too new to be medieval?  Some more famous than I realize or just distracting for other reasons?

This Adventure is for All Levels

I know that it's no fun to have the whole party enslaved by mindflayers in thirty seconds. And I know that wading through hordes of little monsters gets boring fast. But there is something about level appropriate adventures that has always bothered me.

You know, those labels: Suitable for 2-6 adventurers of 3-5 level. Sure, there's always some wiggle room, always hyphens because party power is hard to determine if you don't know which classes are present and how well the players rolled their hit points. But it still feels a little tidy to me. It gives me the impression as a player that I will encounter nothing I can't handle. It constrains the Mythic Underworld.

My challenge to you all, give me an adventure locale suitable for all levels.

Some thoughts on this.

• Hirelings can serve as a powerful DM tool here. They can be a buffer that reduces party size as a factor. They can also help bulk up the power of a lower level party through sheer numbers.
• Part of the problem here is thinking of all encounters as combat encounters. Who says the dragon even cares about your first level schmucks? Maybe the Sphynx likes talking to visitors and will only eat you if you annoy her, whatever your level.
• There would definitely need to be decision signposts for players, so they didn't stumble into packs of beasts that do only want to eat them.
• Geography is probably the key. Think of the Caves of Chaos but also how other topological features of a place might partition different monster communities- elevation, water sources.
  
• Verisimilitude could work to our advantage here too. Maybe the lower level creatures work for the higher level creatures. Maybe the powerful planar creatures are observing the ecology of the place, and that's why they don't blast it all to kingdom come.
• Puzzles are difficult for players, not characters, and thus should be level neutral.
• Environmental hazards- rock slides, lava, geysers, mud pits- could make places equally deadly regardless of level.
  

I would like a place in my campaign world that's interesting and dangerous whether you're first level or tenth. A place that has enough personality, or features that it can be re-visited by parties again and again. Is it possible?

The Great Mosque of Djenné

The largest adobe building in the world. When I think of buildings built using mud, I think squat, even squalid, this Mosque in Mali is the opposite.


This post on Neatorama has a tourist's video that gives you a nice sense of the building as a place in a living community.