The most successful sandbox I ran was a Wreckage migrant caravan. Other than not going backwards, there were no set objectives but to keep going until they felt safe to stop. But knowing that the lives of others depended on the party’s scouting, looting and defending missions, that was all the story we needed.
I’ve had success with a short sandbox about being giant bat riding cartographers, and okay Apocalypse World campaigns back in the day which I guess could be defined as sandbox, but they’re always more personal drama than exploration.
I recently tried play by post about resettling an island, but I think to do a sandbox style game you need to get into the weeds of caring about this space you’ve invented and the finite resources it offers, and there couldn’t be the amount of in the moment back and forth I think is necessary.
My big take away is I think a sandbox needs to be tight with its rules and resources, plus you’ve got to instil reasons for caring about the map. A single smith becomes pivotally important if no one else is a smith. The magic tree isn’t just a dungeon, it’s the heart of the Druid’s faith, now held by evil forces. You have to count ammo, or at least have rules for running out, to create situations where it was worth picking up a rusty old sword. Plasma hedgehogs need to act consistently so the knowledge of their behaviour (and hit points) can give the players the edge over time.
It’s very much a sometimes food, because I usually prefer to make shit up constantly and add in new enemies (when enemies are a thing) every session.
I think the most open sandbox style game I'd play is like, a super open Traveller game.
But that's mostly because Traveller's core impetus: Have enough money to keep your midlife crisis freighter trip going, inherently creates motivations to have to engage with plot hooks.
That and stuff like "Hey that planet has a high tech level we should go shopping," or "That planet has the economy to possibly produce something the rich planet buys tons of," drive curious travel and investment in the map.
My game tonight is the first session out of the intro bit and into the sandbox bit. I’m really hoping folks have enough enthusiasm to do some exploring/pick where to go next once they’re out of the more on-rails part. Which I guess we’ll see!
I’m kinda going crazy trying to prep enough stuff that there’s some things to discover and explore.
My DnD GM ran a one off game for another group over the weekend
One of the players decided on the name Shadowbane Grimblade
Perfect, no notes
Shadowbane Grimblade, third in line, behind Murderspell and Arsonfist Grimblade, to the Netherthrone, the shrouded seat of dark power deep within the bowels of the Gravemire. Betrothed to Sinabella Glumsong, petty princess of Banshee's Aerie, inheritor of the Keening.
Jus’ doodling. I’m thinking in the actual document departments will continue in increasingly small font until they are unreadable.
Supraoptics Welcome Pamphlet
Disorientation
Congratulations are in order, and a hearty welcome to Supraoptics. Currently you are experiencing short-term memory loss concerning your position as a geolateral agent and your placement here at HQ; this is due to the Disorientation you and your fellow agents have undergone to acclimatise to your duties. Despite your fuzzy head, the training has been completed and your newfound skills are intact.
The effects will wear off soon after your initial assignment.
Departments
You are in the Waiting Room on the 2nd floor of the Integrity Department. A restroom is on your immediate left. Mz. Mayfair’s office is behind the red door ahead. An internal balcony provides a view of an elegant zen garden to your right.
Beyond this I guess I’ll throw in your usual Welcome to Night Vale / any given weird yet mundane office story spiel, some cryptic but amiable warnings and some advice for acting natural in the field. I really wanna run an agents verses the supernatural game some time!
It’ll mostly be an excuse to do some design work. Maybe ten pages.
We could really use an Exploration Renaissance. Video games have gotten decent at it but I think a lot of RPGs miss out on the feel of wonder at the world along the path. Maybe put a dedicated part of the treasure and XP into the world by default to start. Some shinies off the beaten path and some XP for helping a merchant fix a wagon wheel, etc.
I know Numenera was supposed to be focused on this aspect as opposed to kill thing get xp
Monte Cook kinda yarks on about it in the foreword if memory serves
Not a fan of the cypher system though
Well, yes, but you have to remember he started branching out around 3e D&D, so Numenera is about exploration in the 3e D&D sense that it starts with a giant foreword about exploration and discovery and then all of the abilities are combat tricks.
Jus’ doodling. I’m thinking in the actual document departments will continue in increasingly small font until they are unreadable.
Supraoptics Welcome Pamphlet
Disorientation
Congratulations are in order, and a hearty welcome to Supraoptics. Currently you are experiencing short-term memory loss concerning your position as a geolateral agent and your placement here at HQ; this is due to the Disorientation you and your fellow agents have undergone to acclimatise to your duties. Despite your fuzzy head, the training has been completed and your newfound skills are intact.
The effects will wear off soon after your initial assignment.
Departments
You are in the Waiting Room on the 2nd floor of the Integrity Department. A restroom is on your immediate left. Mz. Mayfair’s office is behind the red door ahead. An internal balcony provides a view of an elegant zen garden to your right.
Beyond this I guess I’ll throw in your usual Welcome to Night Vale / any given weird yet mundane office story spiel, some cryptic but amiable warnings and some advice for acting natural in the field. I really wanna run an agents verses the supernatural game some time!
It’ll mostly be an excuse to do some design work. Maybe ten pages.
Nume is so rad on the surface. Kinda fascinating to see someone completely blinded to certain tropes, like the fact the wizard equivalent is very powerful, the thief equivalent is pretty good and the fighter blows.
It goes on my list of settings that are better played in your system of choice along with Planescape.
Reasons I love Pathfinder 2E: Being able to build a merfolk ranger detective with a saltwater crocodile and no magic. Level 2 he picks up Poisoner and starts blowdarting people to sleep.
+8
IanatorA predator cannot differentiatebetween prey and accompliceRegistered Userregular
Preordered the FFXIV TTRPG Standard Rulebook.
If I'm reading this right, character creation will be almost entirely about their lore and personality with nearly zero mechanical choice for your job. No subclasses, no choice of features, every Lv50 Paladin has the same actions and stats as every other Lv50 Paladin. There will be rules for equipment though which I hope will add some variety.
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg) Backlog Challenge List
0
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
I’ve had success with a short sandbox about being giant bat riding cartographers, and okay Apocalypse World campaigns back in the day which I guess could be defined as sandbox, but they’re always more personal drama than exploration.
I've been working on my "block crawl" for Wasteland Degenerates for awhile, though it's taken a bit of a back seat while I re-work the highway combat for the Jumper Cable Edition.
I think the most bastardly thing that I do in Asphalt Dirge is erase the randomly generated map every time the party sleeps. They keep some progress, but anything they found previously is gone each morning... so maybe you want to go a little longer before healing and resetting your progressive fumble meter on your mutations, eh?
If I'm reading this right, character creation will be almost entirely about their lore and personality with nearly zero mechanical choice for your job. No subclasses, no choice of features, every Lv50 Paladin has the same actions and stats as every other Lv50 Paladin. There will be rules for equipment though which I hope will add some variety.
yeah you don't level up or anything, you just use the level 30 statblock for level 30 adventures, level 40 for 40, etc.
(the levels for the standard rulebook being 30, 40, 50, 55, and 60)
it's... definitely an interesting thing, judging by the starter set. It's kinda-sorta D&D 5E except without skills and with a huge focus on tactical combat and delayed AOEs. If you've played the MMO it'll be extremely familiar, but if you haven't then I expect that it'll be disappointing.
...also, can I just say that more RPGs should do the thing where you always do a small guaranteed amount of damage/effect and hit rolls are just to do more damage/more effects? FFXIV TTRPG does it, 13th Age does it, IIRC D&D 4E did it a bit, but just in general I feel like it's way better than players just whiffing and doing nothing.
0
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I fucking love running sandbox games and have been doing it successfully for 10+ years as almost my exclusive way of playing D&D. I also think there are common pitfalls that GMs often fall victim to, which leads them to not be as successful as more discrete campaigns.
No meaningful decisions. One of the most common pitfalls GMs making when setting up their sandbox is creating all of these scenarios that have no risk of failure if the players don't address them. One of the most powerful tools GMs have in a sandbox game is giving the players meaningful choices and part of that is what the players choose not to do.
Let's take a simple scenario: the town's local blacksmith cannot forge masterwork weapons as he needs high quality ore from the local mine but recently he's learned it's been overrun with Orcs. If the players choose to deal with it (in whatever fashion), they should see the quality of weapons available improve. But if they don't address it, at some point those Orcs should emerge from the Mines, which means encounter rates increase. Maybe merchants stop visiting the town because the roads aren't safe. But the result of not acting becomes clear, and it makes the world seem like a real breathing place.
Infinite resources. Most modern systems and hacks have done a lot to remove resource tracking from games, but an essential elements of sandbox play is resource management. Time, food, ammunition, gear are all mechanisms the GM can use to put pressure on the players to force decisions. I run a heavily modified ruleset (soon to be my own fully blown system) that accounts for all of the above to drive the need for adventure.
All of the above is the minutiae of play (how far the party can travel before they run out of food and need to hunt, for example; before their gear degrades, etc) but the biggest resource for GMs to use against players is time. The party is not going to be able to resolve every plotline and thread they encounter, so making their decisions meaningful takes on more gravity when they can't do it all.
Let's say that helping a local blacksmith didn't seem that interesting, but investigating reports of a local cult did so they spend a few sessions resolving that. They should see the benefits of that, but also the fallout for not addressing the Orcs. This is a necessary tool to making the world feel like a real place that responds to their action (or inaction).
It also points to the next problem I want to talk about: No Blank Spaces. I personally find that the key to the success of a sandbox game is not knowing every facet of the world, but letting some things emerge through play. In the above two scenarios, which are currently independent, there is the opportunity to connect them. Perhaps the Orcs showed up in the mines because some other underdark creatures who worship a foul deity and pushed into their caves. The players could learn that through either of the scenarios, but the important point is: you don't have to write that into your campaign prep, it can be something that emerges through play and is one of the very fun things about GMing them.
Meaningless Combat. Sandbox play is ultimately a set of procedures that both the GM and players follow but it often relies on a lot of random tables to facilitate decision making and random encounters are a core part of it. The problem is that these often are very flat, "you encounter some Orcs, roll initiative." A way of reframing this problem is: every creature wants something. In the Orcs scenario, they want their caves to be free of the foul deity they've been invaded by. The players could learn that actually build an alliance with them rather than just dispatching them. They might need to then convince the townspeople that they are not in fact monsters, just misunderstood, but assigning motivation makes things far more dynamic. It will also make the encounters where they just get to fighting feel novel and meaningful
Too many empty rooms. Sandbox worlds can feel like empty setpieces because the GM erroneously believes they cannot push the players in any particular direction and need to wait for the players to take action. I always recommend starting a sandbox game en media res to avoid this, but part of making the game feel meaningful is showing what happens when the players interact with the world. Every decision the party makes should provoke a reaction from the world, even if it's as simple as "characters visit X location."
As to prepping for this, my biggest recommendation is taking the inside-out approach. Key up a few hexes (or points; or whatever mapping currency you're using). Start first and foremost with your terrain because that is, to some extent, the theme you will be exploring. Draft up encounter lists that mix animals, creatures, etc. Answering this will help to define who lives there, what they do for industry, and what potential problems could be.
Can you expand on what you mean by "too many empty rooms?" I don't quite follow.
+1
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
My understanding is that it's the problem of like... a hex crawl is both a literal map of the world and a narrative map of the world. Sometimes it can make sense to leave a space fairly empty from a literal mapping perspective - you want travel time between two other hexes for one reason or another. But that makes it narratively a dead end. Every hex should be someplace that you can go intentionally and have something happen.
So if you want empty space, you should have a reason for it to be empty (a mystery to solve, burned farmlands to regrow, that sort of thing) or like, a small something there which might interact with the world in an unexpected way. Like an empty stretch of forest, if you were to poke around, that has an old hunter living there that can be convinced to take care of some of the wolf population or whatever. If you're just moving through that space, you might just fight a couple of wolves on your way elsewhere, but if you intentionally go there, you can prevent that in the future.
+1
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Can you expand on what you mean by "too many empty rooms?" I don't quite follow.
Sure! One of the tenets of sandbox gaming is that you do not tell a story; rather, the story of the game is what the characters choose to do.
This can lead to a weird problem where the areas that get designed feel empty as the GM waits for the characters to take a specific action or become the center of the problem to avoid railroading.
What I’m saying is: don’t be afraid to make the world react to the party just by virtue of being there. And also don’t be afraid to show them something happening that is happening where they are not the center. It will force decisions, even if that decision is “we should leave”.
And then follow my advice by what happens if they choose not to do something.
lol my pf2e players keep steamrolling my encounters... they are only level 1 so things are kind of swingy, but they have rolled pretty hot on every encounter they've been fed to so far except one with a grizzly bear. Today, the guard dog pack encounter they bypassed with animal empathy and a hot roll on their diplomacy check, they managed to accidentally dodge 2/3 traps and intentionally spot and disarm the third, the lightning snake miniboss managed to get one pretty meaty lightning breath line attack off before the fighter crit it and the rogue and druid finished it off. We shall see how they fare against the actual boss next week, but the leaf order druid is making good use of their focus spell to make healing berries and 10 minute rests to get their focus point back to keep people in good shape and they haven't needed to use many resources other than that so they're likely to do well unless the dice suddenly turn on them.
Just hope he manages to live more than 2 rounds and it feels like more of a big fight.
Alternately: Just turn your game into hashtag content and spend thousands of hours over a decade producing it
That's what I did, and it's worked great, I play games semi-regularly and get to decide who I want to play with, and sometimes they say yes, and only have to reschedule most of the time
i mean yeah that's the other secret sauce, simply turn your game night into an award winning podcast that brings in 1.5k a month on patreon : p
it's a lot easier to convince people to commit to a schedule when playing covers a healthy portion of their grocery bill!
I won't lie, I've been playing tabletop and posting here a long time and I had no idea you had a podcast. Is it gouche to ask the name of it?
Alternately: Just turn your game into hashtag content and spend thousands of hours over a decade producing it
That's what I did, and it's worked great, I play games semi-regularly and get to decide who I want to play with, and sometimes they say yes, and only have to reschedule most of the time
i mean yeah that's the other secret sauce, simply turn your game night into an award winning podcast that brings in 1.5k a month on patreon : p
it's a lot easier to convince people to commit to a schedule when playing covers a healthy portion of their grocery bill!
I won't lie, I've been playing tabletop and posting here a long time and I had no idea you had a podcast. Is it gouche to ask the name of it?
Not at all!
The show is called Eidolon Playtest, an AP show where we play EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self, a game made by myself and former forumer Betgirl. The game is inspired by Persona and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and is like a modern day fantasy deal where you have a magical ghost buddy what gives you superpowers. The first edition is a fairly boilerplate PbtA, but we've just recently wrapped up the final draft of our second edition, which we rebuilt from the ground up with a bespoke tarot card-based resolution mechanic and a whole bunch of other new stuff. We're really proud of it! It's gonna be a while before we get layout work done on it and etc. but the (mostly) plaintext version of it is up on our Patreon!
The usual format of the show is to have two campaigns running simultaneously with two separate casts, both GM'd by me and releasing episodes on alternating weeks. The two stories interlink and influence one another, and dovetail at occasional key inflection points. We're currently very deep into our third season, consisting of Eidolon DISCO and Eidolon SKA. DISCO is set in 1979 and focuses on a Scooby Doo-esque gang of mystery solving teens who are investigating the supernatural secrets buried in their rural hometown. SKA is set in 1999 and is about a new generation of mystery-solving teens who are investigating the original party, who mysteriously went missing in 1980.
I also generally try to come up with lots of ways to play with the form of the show; every season has some kind of formal gimmick or hook. For instance, in our previous campaigns, Eidolon POP and Eidolon ROCK, every player had multiple PCs that they were hopping between; one of my favorite episodes of the season involved two seperate parties, both played by the same cast, engaging in PVP. Which sounds like a trainwreck but half the reason I like it so much is that we managed to make it work.
The formal hook of DISCO and SKA is kind of a huge spoiler but it's also something that I think is very neat so I'll spoiler, if you're already sold on checking the show out don't read!
Halfway through the season, it was revealed that I wasn't the GM; a character I was playing was the GM. One of the DISCO party's friends had tricked them into helping him ascend to godhood and now he has control over both parties, and that control extends backwards to the beginning of the campaign. The initial conflict of the back half was how on earth the parties were supposed to defeat the guy who basically defines their reality.
And the solution to that is an even bigger spoiler!
Due to Shenanigans that aren't worth getting into here, one of the player characters deposed me as the GM and took the game over, turning me into a party member. They don't really want to be God though, so now all the PCs are playing hot potato with the GM chair while they try to figure out how to write themselves a loophole to escape the inevitable doom that my character set into motion for them, because actively retconning established facts of the story isn't allowed.
the cast also features a bunch of folks that used to post around here: betgirl, stilts, tal, neotoma, omnipotent bagel, blankzilla, and theyslashthem (who i guess does still post here sometimes other than being y'know banned rn)
DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
one of my friends threatened to beat me up because we were contemplating a new D&D campaign and I wanted to be Gilbert (Gill-bear) Godfury, the helium-voiced paladin
I spent like 10 minutes doing a gilbert gottfried voice about my righteous light and holy smiting
it didn't go over well, and I am definitely playing him in the new campaign
Had a music duo show up in my Instagram feed that's two dudes dressed as medieval beekeepers, one playing the drums and the other playing a bagpipe. Some sorta dark medieval ambient stuff, kinda cool.
So of course now I'm brainstorming a swarmkeeper ranger/bard. Dunno which class to start as, nor which one to focus on level-wise (or if I should even get bard to 3 for a subclass). Just to start I've picked the fairy ancestry with hermit background, and using the hermit ideals and bonds and such they're serene and contemplative of nature and their own self, but harboring bloodthirsty thoughts that their isolation has failed to quell. Their mama always said there was some hobgoblin or bugbear in the family tree lol. So far just to put something on the sheet I've got em as a ranger wearing leather armor so they can still fly, with a focus on archery so they can stay out of harm's way (and a greatclub for melee because it fits the bloodthirst).
One of my friends will be DMing a Pathfinder 2 campaign in about a month. Have only played a little of PF1 and I understand that PF2 is quite different. Bit of reading and I wanted to play an Alchemist Bomber, but saw that many people said that it was not recommended for new players. But not sure how serious I should take that.
Edited because phone posting was filled with spelling errors.
if you've played PF1 you are an experienced enough TTRPG player to probably figure it out fine
alchemist just got a bit of a rework a couple weeks ago actually, if you had been looking at its rules before then you might want to look again, original alchemist was considered a little bit weak and they've changed some stuff.
e: oh it looks like the reworked rules are not up on archives of nethys yet, they do seem to be in pathbuilder though
From what I've read Alchemist is tougher to make work but I've not seen the re-work stuff.
In general playing Abomination Vaults down to the 4th floor it feels like, while builds might help, early level characters are way more about just practically understanding your action economy and what a good turn or creative turn looks like.
oracle has always had a sort of weird unclear class fantasy to me
it's like, being blessed/cursed with divine powers? blursed? mechanically it looks a lot like sorcerer at first glance, which can already do divine spell lists depending on bloodline
Alternately: Just turn your game into hashtag content and spend thousands of hours over a decade producing it
That's what I did, and it's worked great, I play games semi-regularly and get to decide who I want to play with, and sometimes they say yes, and only have to reschedule most of the time
i mean yeah that's the other secret sauce, simply turn your game night into an award winning podcast that brings in 1.5k a month on patreon : p
it's a lot easier to convince people to commit to a schedule when playing covers a healthy portion of their grocery bill!
I won't lie, I've been playing tabletop and posting here a long time and I had no idea you had a podcast. Is it gouche to ask the name of it?
Not at all!
The show is called Eidolon Playtest, an AP show where we play EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self, a game made by myself and former forumer Betgirl. The game is inspired by Persona and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and is like a modern day fantasy deal where you have a magical ghost buddy what gives you superpowers. The first edition is a fairly boilerplate PbtA, but we've just recently wrapped up the final draft of our second edition, which we rebuilt from the ground up with a bespoke tarot card-based resolution mechanic and a whole bunch of other new stuff. We're really proud of it! It's gonna be a while before we get layout work done on it and etc. but the (mostly) plaintext version of it is up on our Patreon!
The usual format of the show is to have two campaigns running simultaneously with two separate casts, both GM'd by me and releasing episodes on alternating weeks. The two stories interlink and influence one another, and dovetail at occasional key inflection points. We're currently very deep into our third season, consisting of Eidolon DISCO and Eidolon SKA. DISCO is set in 1979 and focuses on a Scooby Doo-esque gang of mystery solving teens who are investigating the supernatural secrets buried in their rural hometown. SKA is set in 1999 and is about a new generation of mystery-solving teens who are investigating the original party, who mysteriously went missing in 1980.
I also generally try to come up with lots of ways to play with the form of the show; every season has some kind of formal gimmick or hook. For instance, in our previous campaigns, Eidolon POP and Eidolon ROCK, every player had multiple PCs that they were hopping between; one of my favorite episodes of the season involved two seperate parties, both played by the same cast, engaging in PVP. Which sounds like a trainwreck but half the reason I like it so much is that we managed to make it work.
The formal hook of DISCO and SKA is kind of a huge spoiler but it's also something that I think is very neat so I'll spoiler, if you're already sold on checking the show out don't read!
Halfway through the season, it was revealed that I wasn't the GM; a character I was playing was the GM. One of the DISCO party's friends had tricked them into helping him ascend to godhood and now he has control over both parties, and that control extends backwards to the beginning of the campaign. The initial conflict of the back half was how on earth the parties were supposed to defeat the guy who basically defines their reality.
And the solution to that is an even bigger spoiler!
Due to Shenanigans that aren't worth getting into here, one of the player characters deposed me as the GM and took the game over, turning me into a party member. They don't really want to be God though, so now all the PCs are playing hot potato with the GM chair while they try to figure out how to write themselves a loophole to escape the inevitable doom that my character set into motion for them, because actively retconning established facts of the story isn't allowed.
the cast also features a bunch of folks that used to post around here: betgirl, stilts, tal, neotoma, omnipotent bagel, blankzilla, and theyslashthem (who i guess does still post here sometimes other than being y'know banned rn)
This sounds wonderful and I will add this to my to listen list.
Also, as an aside, do you release this game to buy? Because I would buy the hell out of that
In other news, I've been running a bi-weekly game at work for about a year now. Sadly I can't get more then 4 players. I keep having people pop into the room, go "Oh this looks fun I should join you" and then never show up.
We've been playing after work on in office days. I hook up to a big TV in the largest conference room and cast Foundry onto the screen.
However this upcoming week we are all WFH due to the DNC making getting into the city a living nightmare, so I am running completely online. I'm also trying to get Obsidian note app set up to have all my DM notes in one place so I don't have to keep referring to my campaign book for Curse of Strahd.
Alternately: Just turn your game into hashtag content and spend thousands of hours over a decade producing it
That's what I did, and it's worked great, I play games semi-regularly and get to decide who I want to play with, and sometimes they say yes, and only have to reschedule most of the time
i mean yeah that's the other secret sauce, simply turn your game night into an award winning podcast that brings in 1.5k a month on patreon : p
it's a lot easier to convince people to commit to a schedule when playing covers a healthy portion of their grocery bill!
I won't lie, I've been playing tabletop and posting here a long time and I had no idea you had a podcast. Is it gouche to ask the name of it?
Not at all!
The show is called Eidolon Playtest, an AP show where we play EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self, a game made by myself and former forumer Betgirl. The game is inspired by Persona and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and is like a modern day fantasy deal where you have a magical ghost buddy what gives you superpowers. The first edition is a fairly boilerplate PbtA, but we've just recently wrapped up the final draft of our second edition, which we rebuilt from the ground up with a bespoke tarot card-based resolution mechanic and a whole bunch of other new stuff. We're really proud of it! It's gonna be a while before we get layout work done on it and etc. but the (mostly) plaintext version of it is up on our Patreon!
The usual format of the show is to have two campaigns running simultaneously with two separate casts, both GM'd by me and releasing episodes on alternating weeks. The two stories interlink and influence one another, and dovetail at occasional key inflection points. We're currently very deep into our third season, consisting of Eidolon DISCO and Eidolon SKA. DISCO is set in 1979 and focuses on a Scooby Doo-esque gang of mystery solving teens who are investigating the supernatural secrets buried in their rural hometown. SKA is set in 1999 and is about a new generation of mystery-solving teens who are investigating the original party, who mysteriously went missing in 1980.
I also generally try to come up with lots of ways to play with the form of the show; every season has some kind of formal gimmick or hook. For instance, in our previous campaigns, Eidolon POP and Eidolon ROCK, every player had multiple PCs that they were hopping between; one of my favorite episodes of the season involved two seperate parties, both played by the same cast, engaging in PVP. Which sounds like a trainwreck but half the reason I like it so much is that we managed to make it work.
The formal hook of DISCO and SKA is kind of a huge spoiler but it's also something that I think is very neat so I'll spoiler, if you're already sold on checking the show out don't read!
Halfway through the season, it was revealed that I wasn't the GM; a character I was playing was the GM. One of the DISCO party's friends had tricked them into helping him ascend to godhood and now he has control over both parties, and that control extends backwards to the beginning of the campaign. The initial conflict of the back half was how on earth the parties were supposed to defeat the guy who basically defines their reality.
And the solution to that is an even bigger spoiler!
Due to Shenanigans that aren't worth getting into here, one of the player characters deposed me as the GM and took the game over, turning me into a party member. They don't really want to be God though, so now all the PCs are playing hot potato with the GM chair while they try to figure out how to write themselves a loophole to escape the inevitable doom that my character set into motion for them, because actively retconning established facts of the story isn't allowed.
the cast also features a bunch of folks that used to post around here: betgirl, stilts, tal, neotoma, omnipotent bagel, blankzilla, and theyslashthem (who i guess does still post here sometimes other than being y'know banned rn)
This sounds wonderful and I will add this to my to listen list.
Also, as an aside, do you release this game to buy? Because I would buy the hell out of that
yeah! the "first edition" text up there links to the itch page. like i said, you can get the plaintext version of the game off our patreon for $5, or it'll be up on our itch page... sometime in the next few months, when it's ready for primetime presentationally
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I was playing my first game of pathfinder on forge the other day, and I could not find my main ability, whoch was literally at the top of the abilities page.
oracle has always had a sort of weird unclear class fantasy to me
it's like, being blessed/cursed with divine powers? blursed? mechanically it looks a lot like sorcerer at first glance, which can already do divine spell lists depending on bloodline
fundamentally Oracle was just "hey, let's make a spontaneous caster version of the Cleric's prepared caster, like Sorcerer is to Wizard"
and then rather than the Sorcerer's magical bloodlines you got a person touched by the divine (without necessarily being, like, clergy)
here's the 1E blurb (via d20pfsrd)
Although the gods work through many agents, perhaps none is more mysterious than the oracle. These divine vessels are granted power without their choice, selected by providence to wield powers that even they do not fully understand. Unlike a cleric, who draws her magic through devotion to a deity, oracles garner strength and power from many sources, namely those patron deities who support their ideals. Instead of worshiping a single source, oracles tend to venerate all of the gods that share their beliefs. While some see the powers of the oracle as a gift, others view them as a curse, changing the life of the chosen in unforeseen ways.
I haven't seen what the devs have said about it, but I have to imagine that their inspirations include, like, Jeanne d'Arc
and then it makes its way into PF2E since it was already in PF1E ofc
Posts
I’ve had success with a short sandbox about being giant bat riding cartographers, and okay Apocalypse World campaigns back in the day which I guess could be defined as sandbox, but they’re always more personal drama than exploration.
I recently tried play by post about resettling an island, but I think to do a sandbox style game you need to get into the weeds of caring about this space you’ve invented and the finite resources it offers, and there couldn’t be the amount of in the moment back and forth I think is necessary.
My big take away is I think a sandbox needs to be tight with its rules and resources, plus you’ve got to instil reasons for caring about the map. A single smith becomes pivotally important if no one else is a smith. The magic tree isn’t just a dungeon, it’s the heart of the Druid’s faith, now held by evil forces. You have to count ammo, or at least have rules for running out, to create situations where it was worth picking up a rusty old sword. Plasma hedgehogs need to act consistently so the knowledge of their behaviour (and hit points) can give the players the edge over time.
It’s very much a sometimes food, because I usually prefer to make shit up constantly and add in new enemies (when enemies are a thing) every session.
But that's mostly because Traveller's core impetus: Have enough money to keep your midlife crisis freighter trip going, inherently creates motivations to have to engage with plot hooks.
That and stuff like "Hey that planet has a high tech level we should go shopping," or "That planet has the economy to possibly produce something the rich planet buys tons of," drive curious travel and investment in the map.
I’m kinda going crazy trying to prep enough stuff that there’s some things to discover and explore.
Shadowbane Grimblade, third in line, behind Murderspell and Arsonfist Grimblade, to the Netherthrone, the shrouded seat of dark power deep within the bowels of the Gravemire. Betrothed to Sinabella Glumsong, petty princess of Banshee's Aerie, inheritor of the Keening.
Much better than his half-brother Murderstretch at least.
It’ll mostly be an excuse to do some design work. Maybe ten pages.
What’s your fav department?
Well, yes, but you have to remember he started branching out around 3e D&D, so Numenera is about exploration in the 3e D&D sense that it starts with a giant foreword about exploration and discovery and then all of the abilities are combat tricks.
Wardrobe.
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It goes on my list of settings that are better played in your system of choice along with Planescape.
If I'm reading this right, character creation will be almost entirely about their lore and personality with nearly zero mechanical choice for your job. No subclasses, no choice of features, every Lv50 Paladin has the same actions and stats as every other Lv50 Paladin. There will be rules for equipment though which I hope will add some variety.
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg)
Backlog Challenge List
Otto waves.
Oo\ Ironsizide
I think the most bastardly thing that I do in Asphalt Dirge is erase the randomly generated map every time the party sleeps. They keep some progress, but anything they found previously is gone each morning... so maybe you want to go a little longer before healing and resetting your progressive fumble meter on your mutations, eh?
During the apocalypse.
yeah you don't level up or anything, you just use the level 30 statblock for level 30 adventures, level 40 for 40, etc.
(the levels for the standard rulebook being 30, 40, 50, 55, and 60)
it's... definitely an interesting thing, judging by the starter set. It's kinda-sorta D&D 5E except without skills and with a huge focus on tactical combat and delayed AOEs. If you've played the MMO it'll be extremely familiar, but if you haven't then I expect that it'll be disappointing.
...also, can I just say that more RPGs should do the thing where you always do a small guaranteed amount of damage/effect and hit rolls are just to do more damage/more effects? FFXIV TTRPG does it, 13th Age does it, IIRC D&D 4E did it a bit, but just in general I feel like it's way better than players just whiffing and doing nothing.
No meaningful decisions. One of the most common pitfalls GMs making when setting up their sandbox is creating all of these scenarios that have no risk of failure if the players don't address them. One of the most powerful tools GMs have in a sandbox game is giving the players meaningful choices and part of that is what the players choose not to do.
Let's take a simple scenario: the town's local blacksmith cannot forge masterwork weapons as he needs high quality ore from the local mine but recently he's learned it's been overrun with Orcs. If the players choose to deal with it (in whatever fashion), they should see the quality of weapons available improve. But if they don't address it, at some point those Orcs should emerge from the Mines, which means encounter rates increase. Maybe merchants stop visiting the town because the roads aren't safe. But the result of not acting becomes clear, and it makes the world seem like a real breathing place.
Infinite resources. Most modern systems and hacks have done a lot to remove resource tracking from games, but an essential elements of sandbox play is resource management. Time, food, ammunition, gear are all mechanisms the GM can use to put pressure on the players to force decisions. I run a heavily modified ruleset (soon to be my own fully blown system) that accounts for all of the above to drive the need for adventure.
All of the above is the minutiae of play (how far the party can travel before they run out of food and need to hunt, for example; before their gear degrades, etc) but the biggest resource for GMs to use against players is time. The party is not going to be able to resolve every plotline and thread they encounter, so making their decisions meaningful takes on more gravity when they can't do it all.
Let's say that helping a local blacksmith didn't seem that interesting, but investigating reports of a local cult did so they spend a few sessions resolving that. They should see the benefits of that, but also the fallout for not addressing the Orcs. This is a necessary tool to making the world feel like a real place that responds to their action (or inaction).
It also points to the next problem I want to talk about: No Blank Spaces. I personally find that the key to the success of a sandbox game is not knowing every facet of the world, but letting some things emerge through play. In the above two scenarios, which are currently independent, there is the opportunity to connect them. Perhaps the Orcs showed up in the mines because some other underdark creatures who worship a foul deity and pushed into their caves. The players could learn that through either of the scenarios, but the important point is: you don't have to write that into your campaign prep, it can be something that emerges through play and is one of the very fun things about GMing them.
Meaningless Combat. Sandbox play is ultimately a set of procedures that both the GM and players follow but it often relies on a lot of random tables to facilitate decision making and random encounters are a core part of it. The problem is that these often are very flat, "you encounter some Orcs, roll initiative." A way of reframing this problem is: every creature wants something. In the Orcs scenario, they want their caves to be free of the foul deity they've been invaded by. The players could learn that actually build an alliance with them rather than just dispatching them. They might need to then convince the townspeople that they are not in fact monsters, just misunderstood, but assigning motivation makes things far more dynamic. It will also make the encounters where they just get to fighting feel novel and meaningful
Too many empty rooms. Sandbox worlds can feel like empty setpieces because the GM erroneously believes they cannot push the players in any particular direction and need to wait for the players to take action. I always recommend starting a sandbox game en media res to avoid this, but part of making the game feel meaningful is showing what happens when the players interact with the world. Every decision the party makes should provoke a reaction from the world, even if it's as simple as "characters visit X location."
As to prepping for this, my biggest recommendation is taking the inside-out approach. Key up a few hexes (or points; or whatever mapping currency you're using). Start first and foremost with your terrain because that is, to some extent, the theme you will be exploring. Draft up encounter lists that mix animals, creatures, etc. Answering this will help to define who lives there, what they do for industry, and what potential problems could be.
So if you want empty space, you should have a reason for it to be empty (a mystery to solve, burned farmlands to regrow, that sort of thing) or like, a small something there which might interact with the world in an unexpected way. Like an empty stretch of forest, if you were to poke around, that has an old hunter living there that can be convinced to take care of some of the wolf population or whatever. If you're just moving through that space, you might just fight a couple of wolves on your way elsewhere, but if you intentionally go there, you can prevent that in the future.
Sure! One of the tenets of sandbox gaming is that you do not tell a story; rather, the story of the game is what the characters choose to do.
This can lead to a weird problem where the areas that get designed feel empty as the GM waits for the characters to take a specific action or become the center of the problem to avoid railroading.
What I’m saying is: don’t be afraid to make the world react to the party just by virtue of being there. And also don’t be afraid to show them something happening that is happening where they are not the center. It will force decisions, even if that decision is “we should leave”.
And then follow my advice by what happens if they choose not to do something.
Just hope he manages to live more than 2 rounds and it feels like more of a big fight.
I won't lie, I've been playing tabletop and posting here a long time and I had no idea you had a podcast. Is it gouche to ask the name of it?
Not at all!
The show is called Eidolon Playtest, an AP show where we play EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self, a game made by myself and former forumer Betgirl. The game is inspired by Persona and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and is like a modern day fantasy deal where you have a magical ghost buddy what gives you superpowers. The first edition is a fairly boilerplate PbtA, but we've just recently wrapped up the final draft of our second edition, which we rebuilt from the ground up with a bespoke tarot card-based resolution mechanic and a whole bunch of other new stuff. We're really proud of it! It's gonna be a while before we get layout work done on it and etc. but the (mostly) plaintext version of it is up on our Patreon!
The usual format of the show is to have two campaigns running simultaneously with two separate casts, both GM'd by me and releasing episodes on alternating weeks. The two stories interlink and influence one another, and dovetail at occasional key inflection points. We're currently very deep into our third season, consisting of Eidolon DISCO and Eidolon SKA. DISCO is set in 1979 and focuses on a Scooby Doo-esque gang of mystery solving teens who are investigating the supernatural secrets buried in their rural hometown. SKA is set in 1999 and is about a new generation of mystery-solving teens who are investigating the original party, who mysteriously went missing in 1980.
I also generally try to come up with lots of ways to play with the form of the show; every season has some kind of formal gimmick or hook. For instance, in our previous campaigns, Eidolon POP and Eidolon ROCK, every player had multiple PCs that they were hopping between; one of my favorite episodes of the season involved two seperate parties, both played by the same cast, engaging in PVP. Which sounds like a trainwreck but half the reason I like it so much is that we managed to make it work.
The formal hook of DISCO and SKA is kind of a huge spoiler but it's also something that I think is very neat so I'll spoiler, if you're already sold on checking the show out don't read!
And the solution to that is an even bigger spoiler!
the cast also features a bunch of folks that used to post around here: betgirl, stilts, tal, neotoma, omnipotent bagel, blankzilla, and theyslashthem (who i guess does still post here sometimes other than being y'know banned rn)
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I spent like 10 minutes doing a gilbert gottfried voice about my righteous light and holy smiting
it didn't go over well, and I am definitely playing him in the new campaign
So of course now I'm brainstorming a swarmkeeper ranger/bard. Dunno which class to start as, nor which one to focus on level-wise (or if I should even get bard to 3 for a subclass). Just to start I've picked the fairy ancestry with hermit background, and using the hermit ideals and bonds and such they're serene and contemplative of nature and their own self, but harboring bloodthirsty thoughts that their isolation has failed to quell. Their mama always said there was some hobgoblin or bugbear in the family tree lol. So far just to put something on the sheet I've got em as a ranger wearing leather armor so they can still fly, with a focus on archery so they can stay out of harm's way (and a greatclub for melee because it fits the bloodthirst).
Edited because phone posting was filled with spelling errors.
alchemist just got a bit of a rework a couple weeks ago actually, if you had been looking at its rules before then you might want to look again, original alchemist was considered a little bit weak and they've changed some stuff.
e: oh it looks like the reworked rules are not up on archives of nethys yet, they do seem to be in pathbuilder though
In general playing Abomination Vaults down to the 4th floor it feels like, while builds might help, early level characters are way more about just practically understanding your action economy and what a good turn or creative turn looks like.
it's like, being blessed/cursed with divine powers? blursed? mechanically it looks a lot like sorcerer at first glance, which can already do divine spell lists depending on bloodline
This sounds wonderful and I will add this to my to listen list.
Also, as an aside, do you release this game to buy? Because I would buy the hell out of that
We've been playing after work on in office days. I hook up to a big TV in the largest conference room and cast Foundry onto the screen.
However this upcoming week we are all WFH due to the DNC making getting into the city a living nightmare, so I am running completely online. I'm also trying to get Obsidian note app set up to have all my DM notes in one place so I don't have to keep referring to my campaign book for Curse of Strahd.
yeah! the "first edition" text up there links to the itch page. like i said, you can get the plaintext version of the game off our patreon for $5, or it'll be up on our itch page... sometime in the next few months, when it's ready for primetime presentationally
http://www.audioentropy.com/
fundamentally Oracle was just "hey, let's make a spontaneous caster version of the Cleric's prepared caster, like Sorcerer is to Wizard"
and then rather than the Sorcerer's magical bloodlines you got a person touched by the divine (without necessarily being, like, clergy)
here's the 1E blurb (via d20pfsrd) I haven't seen what the devs have said about it, but I have to imagine that their inspirations include, like, Jeanne d'Arc
and then it makes its way into PF2E since it was already in PF1E ofc