Wilderness Sandbox Campaign

I have been thinking about this a fair bit lately, and what I would like to see is a nice stand alone LBB that covers just running a Wilderness Sandbox game.  I am seeing references to various book out there (AD&D's Wilderness guide comes to mind) but nothing that is exactly focused on a rules light kind of approach.

These links got me thinking about what that would entail:

 

 

...And others.

The Book I am envisioning is not a detailed area in hex map form for the players to explore, but instead a set of rules and random tables for creating and running your own.  I am kind if enamored with the idea that the DM does not try to detail the whole map at once, but instead has the rules and tables for generating logical terrain one hex at a time. That way he or she details the DMs map the night before each game session.  They lay track in from of the train, if you will, and simply look at the sheet of Gamer Paper (Hex map) that the party has been filling in, and figures out what is the hexes within range that can be explored in the next session.  (using something like Gabe's Resolve points makes that a clear radius)  If the party makes it to a blank space in the DMs map, then he can pull out the book and quickly roll on the tables to see what they find, or (more likely) just wing it.

 

Update

Found this nice series of posts while digging around on Bat in the Attic.  Rob is walking though the process of making a sandbox setting from scratch, so these posts more focused on creating the whole sandbox from the get go, then the 'just in time' style I was talking about.  But a great set of guidelines, and certainly something that the LBB idea should cover.  (Frankly, he could probably compile all 34 posts when he is done and publish it as a How-to book on Lulu.)

Three is the magic number...

So looking at the classic OD&D rules, I have been mulling over something that bugs me.  For classes, you have Fighting-man, Magic-user, and Cleric.  Each of these constitutes a fundamental way of accomplishing tasks, (Looking at these from the perspective of 4E, each is a Power Source.)  So while a Fighting-Man approaches tasks in a physical way, a Magic-User approaches it in a magical way, and a Cleric uses their god’s divine influence to get it done.  Meanwhile, the demi-human classes are different mechanical interpretations of the core three classes.

On the other hand, Thievery is kind of the odd man out.  It seems to me that being a thief is not a mechanical difference, but more a lifestyle choice. 

Thinking back to the Fafhrd & The Grey Mouser stories, which were one of the big inspirations for D&D, Fafhrd was a barbarian fighting-man who acted more like a thief.  And the Grey Mouser was trained as a wizard but had also chosen the life of a thief. Yet in the basic rules there is no way to recreate either of these characters.

As the class is written, they are like weak fighting-men who have an additional sub-mechanic of thief skills and some other tricks.  But they still are assumed to approach their tasks in a physical manner, but just in a less directly way.

So could you have a magic-user thief, who wasn’t a multi-class or hybrid of the two, but instead a magic-user who used his magic to steal. And how about if you created a cleric of the patron god of thieves?  Shouldn’t he also be motivated to be a thief, but would rely on his god to get past guards and open locks?

So this got me to wondering if the thief class is really just a template that can be applied to one of the core classes.  Actually also then would the other later classes (Monk, illusionist, Druid, etc) are not full on classes, but instead just a particular template applied to a core class.

 

Thief = Fighting-man + Criminal Template

Druid = Cleric + Nature Template

Monk = Cleric + Ascetic Template

 

…and so forth.  Psionics could also be a template.  And in fact so could the demi-human classes.  I am seeing a template as being a set of powers or advantages they get, but also there would be associated restrictions and other negatives.  If they take more then one template for their character, then these would all stack.

I can see this as add on book for OD&D with these different templates, almost like a recipe book.  The DM would have the players describe an idea for their character, and then he would look up and see what template(s) he would permit to get close to their idea mechanically.  (I suspect this is the sort thing that DMs houserule all the time- for instance the new player REALLY wants to be a pirate, so the DM gives them some some extra pirate stuff their Fighting-man can do.)

The first question that would need to be addressed is can you stack templates, and if so how many is the limit.  (To avoid the “Dwarven Cleric thief who is also Psionic” uber character)  I think that it should be up to the DM to make the call, and also they can assign stiffer negatives to the templates if they are worried about balance.

I also wonder how close this gets to just having multiclass characters, or if this is just trying to subvert OD&D into being something closer to AD&D.  (and if so, why not just play AD&D?)

I think the difference is that a template can be anything- it can cover specialized classes, but also cover GURPs style Advantages and Disadvantages or 4E backgrounds.  (Raised by wolves be a template, or being Ambidextrous.)

The big mechanical question is over the advancement charts.  The demi-humans have a level cap, and the 3 classes advance at different rates through their levels.  It seems like a template can put a level cap on a character, but it should not mess with the core class’s advancement rate.  For the Dwarves Cleric Thief with Psionics, despite all their limitations, and level cap, they should still use the Cleric charts, because it should still feel like a cleric.

So back to the Thief, if it were a template instead of a class, then the PC would still get their thieves ‘skills’ using the same rolls.  But depending on their base class, the ‘fluff’ text on how they do it would change.  And rather then having their own advancement chart, they would use their core class’s chart but might have a level cap.  And finally they would also have the weapon and armor restrictions which would be superseded by their core class if its more restrictive.  (One advantage of some templates would be that they negate a restriction on a core class- so if a Cleric took the ‘evil cultist template’ option, then suddenly they would no longer be restricted to blunt objects- and could wield a sacrificial dagger in the service of their dark god.) 

Graphpaper & Hexmaps on the iPad

So playing around with my iPad, I went ahead and shelled out the $9 for Sketchbook Pro from Autocad, since it is a very full featured sketching app.  One nice thing is that it supports a simple from of Photoshop layers.  So I have been playing around with it to see how well it can be used for making game maps while I am waiting for the train, or sitting through a boring meeting.  All you need to do is create your grid in a program like Illustrator and save it out as a PNG, with everything other then the lines set to be transparent.  The images should be 1024x768.  Here are a couple I made using illustrator:

Black lines: 

Old-school cyan lines:

 

 

Just download them, and then transfer them into the iPad Photo Gallery somehow (I just emailed them to myself, and then opened the email on the ipad and saved it out there. But there is probably a smarter way to do it.)

You then open up Sketchbook Pro, and go into the layers flyout:

and then select the 'flower+' icon at the bottom to import the grid image from your photo library.  (since they are transparent PNGs, the app shows them as solid black thumbnails, but they work fine.)

You then can create a new layer and put it behind the grid image layer.  I also lowered the opacity of the grid layer to make it less intense.  you then sketch on the layer(s) behind the layer with the grid image.  the app supports upto 3 layers, so you can have the Grid on top, your background texture at the bottom, and then sketch out the dungeon or terrain features on the middle layer.  i will try and post anything I make that comes out decent.

Swords & Wizardry Wheel Chart

Heres how my mind works- When I think of 1974, there is one tool that epitimized nerds more then anything else- the Slide Rule.  Its an amazing piece of technology that was pretty much killed off by the pocket calculator, and later the PC.  But looking at the attack roll charts in S&W, I had the thought - "I bet I can make a sliderule type tool to make that easier."

So after a few nights puttering around I came up with this volvelle design.  Pretty simple- you cut out the two circles, and pin them together through their center- and then just line up your character's level with the target's AC.  Pretty simple.

Now some folks might argue that part of the fun of retro-gaming is looking up to-hit numbers in giant charts in the book.  But I figure I don't want players asking for the book everytime they want to hit something new.  Also wheel charts fit with the whole math nerd side of classic gaming.

Anyhoo, I figure I can probably make a similar chart of Labyrinth Lord/Moldvay, since the charts work in a similar fashion.  Let me know in the comments if that is worth doing.

Download the Sword & Wizardry Wheel Chart (350kb PDF)

OSR Breakdown

 

This is some terminology that has been confusing me up till now, since blogs and forums tended to assume a certain level of knowledge.  (I stopped playing D&D in middle school, so I never really understood the various versions.  So here is a chart of the editions, and the compatible retro-clones for D&D.

 
Also Referred to as:
Compatible Retro Clones

Chainmail
1969 
  • Tactical Unit Rules Rules for wargaming
  None
OD&D
1974

 

  • "Little Brown Books"
  • "Woodgrain box", or "The White Box"
  • Classic D&D

Came as 3 digest sized books
(Reissued - 1978 )
 

 
D&D
1977

 


  • Blue Book
  • Basic D&D
  • Holmes version

 

(Not so sure about this category)
B/X D&D
1981

 

  • Basic Set Dungeons & Dragons (Red Box)
  • Expert Set Dungeons & Dragons (Blue Box)
  • Moldvay & Cook's version

 
BECMI D&D
1983

 

  • Basic Set Dungeons & Dragons (Red Box)
  • Basic and Expert were expanded with Companion, Master & Immortal sets.
  •  
  • Frank Mentzer's version

 

  None 

 
AD&D
1978
  • Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
  • 1st Edition AD&D
 
 
AD&D 2nd ed.
1989
  • 2nd Ed AD&D 
  • Second Edition
 
D&D 3rd ed
2000

-and/or-
3.5 ed
2003
  • 3/3.5
 
 Any of the D20 products.
D&D 4th ed
2008
 
 None

 

(There are more variances within editions - but I think I have the main iterations mapped out.)