"Black Dougal gasps 'Poison!' and falls to the floor. He looks dead."

Friday, May 22, 2009

A Future Sandbox?

The other day I was thinking about a sandbox campaign starting with the venerable Keep on the Borderlands and then surrounding it with Judges Guild adventures. Here is what I came up with...
Of course, some adjustments would have to be made to maps, including orientation and scale.

In the beginning hex is the Keep, the Caves of Chaos and I would use Prey of Darkness for the Cave of the Unknown.
"Prey of Darkness is a Universal Playing aid which details a force of brigands and their advisors, followers, and slaves. Each of the brigands has a price on his or her head. You have been charged with their capture! Can you bring them back to face trial alive, or must you kill them in order to collect the reward? Can you even survive the attempt? Send your heroes and heroines in search of Red Honohon and Black M'Dabb. This scenario can also be used for evil characters that need manpower to accomplish their goals. Join Red and Black in their endeavors to become rich and powerful. Become a brigand and terrorize the countryside! Challenge Red and Black for the leadership of the brigand force! All this and more await you!"
- Acaeum.com

The river that flows out of the SE corner of the B2 Wilderness Map would turn south and be the river that goes north to south on the Wilderness Map from the Illhiedrin Book.
"A search by a beautiful Wizardress involves the recovery of the fabulous Illhiedrin Book, lost during a raging storm amid bolts of lightning in a titanic battle between an inhuman creature and a now-dead Wizard who was the former possessor of the Book. They party must recover the Book, defeat the Creature, and stay alive in the process. This Scenario is designed for use with low-level characters and includes wilderness maps, dungeon maps and inhabitants, plus the dangers of a lost city."
- Acaeum.com

The road that exits at the NE corner of the B2 Wilderness Map would lead to Fortress Badabaskor.
"An adventure in the wilderness stronghold of a band of brigands that includes the background and statistics of an evil local deity, plus history, maps, and keyed room descriptions of a five-level dungeon carved out of the side of a mountain. The first three levels are fairly easy and suitable for breaking in new and inexperienced players; but the lower two are far tougher, and include a cavern that has a series of four dragon dens, indicative of the difficulty of the lower levels."
- Acaeum.com

Beyond the Valley of Fixation would be the Citadel of Fire.
"This is the ancient stronghold of Yrammag with six tower levels and five dungeon levels. It is designed for very advanced characters, and includes encounters with everything from giant rats to a minotaur and a demon. Tables have been provided for the random location and activity of the great Trammag, so that it will be a surprise each time the dungeon is entered by the adventurers. The surrounding wilderness is mapped out according to our Campaign Hexagon System, and Yrammag's spells are listed to provide a complete and detailed dungeon adventure, created and officially approved for use with D&D."
- Acaeum.com

I could then round it out using the Book of Treasure Maps.

The next question would be, "What ruleset?"
B/X?
OD&D (or S&W)?
Maybe Holmes? I kinda like this idea...

7 comments:

  1. Sweet! Both Badabaskor and Citadel are a really dangerous, though, so you'd need to have something to bump everyone to mid level at least before giving them a try (Using Holmes you'd never finish either, trust me). S&W would seem like a great fit for this sort of campaign. I'd throw in Book of Treasure Maps I-III for some short goodies, and use either Verbosh or Modron as a base.....

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  2. Hm. You post this inspiring piece just days after I send off and order to Noble Knight, deciding at last minute to not purchase The Illhiedrin Book.

    Now I feel tempted to build something like this with those of the JG adventures I do have. Verbosh looks like a good match.

    The choice of rules are easy. T&T of course! :)

    What? D&D? Well, B/X if you insist.

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  3. "Both Badabaskor and Citadel are a really dangerous, though, so you'd need to have something to bump everyone to mid level at least before giving them a try"
    I was thinking that between the Caves of Chaos, Prey of Darkness and the Illhiedrin Book that there is a lot of low level material to get a character up to 5-6 level. In fact, after a while they may find it a little too easy. After that the village of Badabaskor and the first couple of levels of the dungeon aren't that tough so long as players are smart. But you are right, the bottom of Badabaskor and the Citadel of Fire are tough.

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  4. As an intellectual exercise, T&T would be fun to consider for this but I don't think I cold find anyone to actually play it :(

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  5. Too bad. Are your local gamers one-system-gamers or do you just have too few players around? You could try online gaming, I guess.

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  6. Most around here are into the new and shiny. I am happy that I have found 10 people to play B/X!

    As for online gaming, it is not really my thing. I was part of Scott's World of Thool play-by-post game any while I enjoyed seeing how he did things both from a game perspective and in developing his world, the play by post aspect drove me nuts.

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  7. Maybe I should use Labyrinth Lord and the playtest for Goblinoid Games' "Advanced Edition Characters" supplement.

    http://www.freeyabb.com/goblinoidgames/viewtopic.php?t=1018&mforum=goblinoidgames

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