The Wyrd Sword Kickstarter campaign is winding down, we are currently in the last three days, and I wrote this rather big update, which I’ll reproduce in full here since it deals with the holy grail of OSR, writing Sandbox adventures.
With the campaign entering the final straight of funding, I thought I’d explain the stretch goal, which was funded a couple of days ago and, in many ways, illustrates the player centred style of the game.
So you funded an introductory adventure in the main rulebook. This is already part written, it’s just a matter of adding a bit more description and monster stats and it’s done. I didn’t include it in the basic goal because, frankly, I had run out of steam writing it. Funding it as a stretch has given me a good dose of excitement to get it done.
So let’s have a look at what it entails. Here’s the introduction.
Adventure: The Tower in the Badlands
The Situation
An old Tower stands on the borderlands of the Realm, just outside the boundaries of the town of Hogwoppit by the Badlands. Once part of the Realm’s early warning system of beacons and a refuge for locals from monstrous raiders from the Badlands, it has been deserted for hundreds of years.
Rumour has it that a Sorcerer and their pets have moved into the tower, searching for a lost treasure trove hidden somewhere in the building.
Curious, the adventurers are drawn to Hogwoppit, along with other interested parties, in preparation of a raid on the tower.
So there you have a pretty standard fantasy adventure set up. The adventurers gather in the nearest friendly town, do some last miniute shopping for their expedition, travel through the wilderness (where they may or may not have an encounter) and arrive at the tower to explore, loot and fight anything they find there.
There are some twists, but I wanted to do something straightforward so players and GMs could easily get into it while they learn the game.
What’s different about this adventure is the framework I’m using to present it. I could easily do a scene-by-scene write-up (Scene 1: The Town, Scene 2: What Happens on the Journey, etc.), but instead I’ve chosen to go for a sandbox style of play.
This breaks down into defining the elements of the adventures in advance.
The adventure is physically split into three Zones, as follows.
The Hub Location of the town of Murith – This is a safe area for the characters where they can buy equipment, learn rumours, train between adventures, and gain Quests (see below) from local movers and shakers. In game terms its where the GM, with player input set up the stage for the adventure. While the players explore and interact with it in-game, and may make skill rolls to interact with the locals to learn rumours, because it’s a safe place, they can not earn experience, and so there is a push not to linger and get on with the adventure properly.
The Town of Hogwoppit and surrounding farmlands. This is a Settled zone. While it is possible to get into fights and other acts of skulduggery, part of Hogwoppit’s charm is that it’s a nest of rather shady characters and slightly lawless in a Wild West sort of way, it’s still easing the characters into the adventure proper. Quests and Rumours are given out by the locals, and more information about what is to come.
Next up is Wilds. Here, law and order of the Realm is completely absent because its officers do not come this far out, and encounters with wild animals, raiders and other elements that survive and thrive in this environment are the norm. This is the road to the Tower and its surrounding bushlands.
Finally, the Tower itself sits in the Badlands, a zone similar to the Wilds in many respects but actively hostile to the Realm’s residents. This is where the raiders come from and where infamous local monsters make their lairs. This is the default “pull” of the adventure setup: the characters, as adventurers, are overwhelmingly curious about the Tower as a place of loot and glory!
To populate each zone, there are the following objects.
- A Events/Encounter tables. Not only could you meet monster x, but also what monster x is doing. For example, a Tax Collector and his armed escort, leaving town with a loaded cart of treasure after a collection.
- A Rumour Mill (optional). If there are locals who can provide gossip and half baked options about the adventure and what it entails, this D20 random table provides them.
- NPCs/Monsters. Fully stated in true “Monsters are People Too” style.
- Locations. Castles, ruins, villages, and underground cave systems of a fantastic nature.
Also, the factions. In the sandbox of the Tower, there are three active groups.
- The Order of the Rat. Knights who, unlike other orders of the Realm who revere Lord Day (the stereotypically warlike male Sun God), follow the more shady Lady Night as their patron.
- The Cult of Death. Cultists of the Warp led by an undead sorcerer. Obvious enemies and stated to be effective protagonists to the characters.
- The Black Boar. Group of local bandits. They steal from the rich and give to the needy, but with a shady alliance with the Knights of the Order of the Rats, are they really the characters friends?
Factions are potential friends and enemies that have their own interests and goals in the sandbox, with which the characters can interact with.
To push things along, if the player’s natural curiosity is low.
- Quests are given by important NPCs. If completed, they not only reward the characters materially, but also with increases in Status.
- There are Event/Encounter tables for each active zone.
What Wyrd Sword adventures lack is a well-defined plot that leads to a tightly defined outcome. Historically, the most popular BRP adventures have been sandbox style ones, and even adventures which are basically a write up with stats of a playtest adventure are seen by prospective GMs as only one way to play an adventure that they break down and mine for ideas before running. So with the style of write up I’m using for Wyrd Sword, I’m doing this before we start.
In my playtest games, after explaining the setup of the sandbox, and perhaps giving the players the opportunity to pick up some Quests from local VIPs in the Hub Town, their characters headed off into the Wilds, taking routes the players found interesting. They interacted with NPCs, sometimes fighting them, sometimes not, and genuinely surprised me in the process. There was one sandbox adventure, where I subtly set the scene of one group being enemies, and a NPC being a potential ally, through in-game rumours and conversations with the locals. In the end, the players allied with the enemy faction and actively attacked the potential ally. And the best thing, it all made sense, was more fun than me “railroading” the players and a good story that everyone can tell for years to come. What more could you want from a roleplaying session?
