I’m building a sandbox for my Seekers of Lore campaign, and decided it might be worth indexing the articles now rather than later, including my anticipated future posts.
Posts So Far
- Finding the Map: I use Hexographer to generate random maps with three different settings (Default Terrain, Many Islands, Fewer Oceans) and pick one (Fewer Oceans) to work with going forward.
- Major Landmarks and Sites: I briefly describe how this is done in Kevin Crawford’s excellent An Echo, Resounding: A Sourcebook for Lordship and War, and the changes I will make to this process.
Posts to Come
Topics and tentative titles for upcoming posts, with an approximate order of posting.
- Refining the Map: I will tweak some of the hex terrains, adding rivers, that sort of thing. I think I may start placing the resources at this point, since they are functionally part of the landscape and will affect the next step.
- Civilizing the Wilds: I will generate some basic information about cities and towns, then placing them on the map. I will also identify some trade routes between them, and some (probably vague) political borders. I expect placement to be somewhat uneven, with broad reaches that are not settled (… by civilized races), and I may amend earlier estimates of the number of settlements when I see how the political groupings shape up.
- Danger! Danger! I will generate some basic information about ruins (former settlements that have fallen, but are still of interest) and lairs (specific sites where predators — including two-legged ones — live and threaten others).
- What’s in a Name? I have an ‘adventure name generator’ that seems to produce some good, old school style adventure names. I think after placing the ruins and lairs it may be time to start assigning them. These names may not be known to the characters in-world, but will help me quite a bit in my design work from this point.
- Secrets and Lost Lore: A major element of this setting is the discovery or recovery of lost knowledge. By this point I will have identified many of the major physical links between the various sites, now it’s time to think about the primary ‘treasures’ of this setting and how they relate to the physical sites. Where do you learn about what, and where do you go after that?
I am certain this is not a complete list. I can think of some other topics I might want to explore but that do not have a fixed place in this schedule, such as it is.
You should do some more on this at some point :-)
Yeah, I know. I’ve basically put everything on hold until I get this feats book done.
I didn’t plan it that way, mind, but I know that if I didn’t buckle down it would never get done.
Hi, did you ever complete the posts mentioned above? Did you finish this series on how to “sandbox”?
No, I haven’t… or at least, not this iteration. During the 2014 A-Z Blog Challenge, though, I started a new one and it’s much more fleshed out. The easiest place to get into it is the Z-A Index I posted at the end of that challenge, and I can add it to my Hall of Fame.
I’ve been very busy last year and haven’t had much time for blogging. In fact, I’ve had single months (even weeks!) previously with more posts than I had last year.