The roleplaying game community has long
waged a contentious debate over linear “railroad” and more
free-form “sandbox” style adventures. For those looking for
inspiration or guidance writing a setting-driven scenario – or who
aspire to veer their adventure-writing styles toward such fare –
the classic Basic Dungeons & Dragons modules B2 The
Keep on the Borderlands and X1 The Isle of Dread serve as
ideal examples from the earliest days of the adventure gaming hobby.
I’m guilty of writing what many might
label “railroading” adventures, though I consider them more based
on linear plots with episodic encounters that still allow for
variable approaches from characters and some alternate outcomes (a
point I’m sure loyal readers would love to argue); many games for
which I’ve written use cinematic settings which focus more on plots
rather than sandbox-style settings. As a writer I come from a more
narrative, story-oriented background, a style I fall back on when
visualizing and creating scenarios. In my occasional urge to broaden
my horizons and try new things I found myself looking at the B2
and X1 D&D modules, satisfying early gaming experiences as
filtered through the foggy lens of nostalgic memory – to see what
elements made a good sandbox adventure.
One might more accurately describe this
scenario dichotomy as those based on plotted encounters (necessarily
linear in the style of a story) and others focusing on vast settings
offering more freedom of action, with players and their heroes
determining any “plot” based on their interaction with locations
and non-player characters. Where the “railroading” adventure
relies on plotted outline with encounters based on places and
characters, the “sandbox” scenario creates a vast, interactive
environment based on the premise that heroes might wander anywhere to
encounter anything and anyone fitting the environment’s general
theme. This requires a bit more development than fleshing out a
story-based outline containing mostly the relevant locations and
adversaries necessary to move action from one plot-point to the next.
It’s not to say such adventures contain no plot at all; they
present thematic environments for heroes to explore, working through
encounters and exposing small plots along the way in more generally
thematic rather than story-driven play.
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands
offers a rich adventuring locale with three distinct elements: the
keep, which provides a base of operations for characters and a
“civilized” place for intrigues; the Caves of Chaos, a warren of
demi-human lairs and a temple of evil for heroes to explore and clear
out; and a few secondary locations for further adventures (the
hermit, bandit camp, lizardman mound, spiders, and even something for
gamemasters to populate themselves, the Caves of the Unknown). The
environment offered players lots of options within the premise of
seeking adventure on the wild borderlands: dungeon crawls through
creature lairs, occasional forays into the wilderness (possibly to
foil plots to destroy the keep), and interaction/conspiracy with the
keep’s residents. I have vague recollections of character plots to
break into the loan bank or private apartments to steal valuable
items from the keep’s denizens, few of which ended successfully.
X1 The Isle of Dread flips the
paradigm in in the Basic/Expert D&D format from dungeon
crawl with surrounding wilderness to an entire wilderness environment
with a few dungeon crawls. Combining elements from King Kong
and The Lost World with typical D&D fare, it offers
an entire tropical island to explore in what some might come to call
the “hex crawl” style: the party of adventurers exploring one hex
after another, clearing out wandering monsters, finding clues to fuel
their interest, and resolving set location encounters. Along the way
they find several mapped areas, including the climactic dungeon crawl
at the center of the island. As in B2, X1 provides a native
village as a convenient base of operations, though nothing as stable
and secure as the good old keep on the borderlands. My gaming group
of neighborhood kids didn’t spend too much time exploring the Isle
of Dread; but we did put the two-page spread map of the Known World
(later known as Mystara) to good use. Characters hired a ship and
crew and spent after-school afternoons sailing the Sea of Dread,
fighting off wandering sea creatures and exploring the disparate
islands scattered between the Thanegioth Archipelago and the
civilized kingdoms in the north.
Both modules provide complete
adventuring environments: a region to explore, specific locations
(both broad encounters and detailed dungeons), and a base for
resupply and recuperation (and perhaps some additional intrigue).
Gamemasters have plenty of territory in which to create their own
encounters. The modules make some assumptions about the heroes’
reasons to adventure in these areas – usually general exploration,
conquest, and plunder – though some might consider these basic
premises for involving characters in local quests “railroading.”
Still, once one gets past the premise
for heroes entering a location, the encounters and dungeon crawls
(and even wandering monsters) provide a structured environment for
free exploration with a greater illusion of free will.
B2 and X1 provide solid
guidelines for creating open “sandbox” adventuring environments:
1) Start with an interesting region
filled with potential scenario-hook locations and a general reason to
explore it.
2) Establish a base from which the
heroes can venture, someplace that provides a safe haven for resupply
and recuperation, a home for interesting allies and covert
adversaries, and a strategic asset to defend from enemies.
3) Populate the area with general
encounters that don’t require a map (or can use a generic one);
they should include one or two paragraphs of notes and necessary
stats or references, but aren’t full-fledged dungeon crawls.
4) Create a few fully developed dungeon
crawls. These might prove pivotal to a greater “meta-plot” of the
region or might simply fit the area’s general theme.
As I’ve discussed before, the
designers of the Pathfinder Beginner Box offered a briefly outlined environment focused on Sandpoint – the heroes’
base town – and its surroundings where the set’s initial
adventures took place (both the programmed player and gamemaster
scenarios); descriptions of a few other locations and a handful of
plot hooks offered some inspiration for further adventures. In my own
game-design endeavors, I’ve outlined (regrettably in text only, no
map...yet) a region for my own future fantasy roleplaying game adventures; it includes a base and several broadly described
locations, with the two as-yet unreleased dungeon crawls set there.
I’m sure many products since
adventure gaming’s earliest efforts have followed their examples
and offered exemplary adventuring environments. Most fall under the
category of source material rather than adventure module. Setting
resources like the Thieves’ World boxed set, the Cyberpunk
2020 Night City sourcebook, and the D6 Star Wars
supplement Galaxy Guide 7: Mos Eisley come to mind, though
they serve more to create rich adventuring environments rather than
general and more detailed scenarios (though they’re rife with plot
hooks). Perhaps such fare remains more appropriate to core or
introductory products where designers seek to offer a sample
adventuring environment representative of the kind of action the game
strives to create. For those seeking more open-ended, “sandbox”
play instead of plot-driven “railroading” scenarios, such formats
can provide themed environments further defined by the characters’
explorations and the gamemaster’s creativity.
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