I’ve blogged before about tools for sandbox style gaming, this post will be about giving some specific examples of how that happens at the table.
I’m currently running 4 AD&D 1e campaigns, 6-8 players in each game, I don’t do mountains of prep before every session. I created a setting (that was about 4 months of research+writing), and I let the players loose in the setting, and my job is to make the game world react to what they do. So my “prep” for the session is a copy of last week’s notes (taken during play) so I know where we left off, and any larger scale adventure notes (e.g. if they were exploring a dungeon, the notes for the dungeon).
I let the players drive everything else. At the table what this means is that they make decisions and commit actions, there are reactions to those actions, these produce responses from the players, and so it goes.
Just doing this, prepping a general setting and letting the players interact with it, works well. However, I see people routinely say that if they did this with their players they would sit around looking at each other wondering what to do. In actuality, I have been doing this for 7 years now, with 4 different groups for the last three, and this is not what happened.
I’ve often wondered why my experience is different than others. It could be my groups, but my groups seem pretty typical. It could be me, but that doesn’t ring true. I suspect it may be that people simply can’t envisage what it would be like, so they don’t think they can do it.
There will be occasional times when a group playing in this style might get “stuck”, or come to a point where they aren’t sure what to do. I think people overestimate how much of a problem this will be. It’s like people are terrified of having to stop and think about the game while playing it, or they fear their players being so challenged they won’t enjoy the game anymore.
Sometimes though, examples help, and I was reflecting today how one of the NPCs in my Thursday game is a great example of how PC actions can create a cascade of events that drive the game forward.
Zimmerlin Suel, Warlock of House Himmenghost
Human Magic-User 7th level, HP: 20, AC:6, MV: 12”, Weapon: (6) Daggers
Familiar: Crow AC 7,HP: 4, NA: 1, DA: 1-2, vision
Spells: 1st – Enlarge, Light,Magic Missile, Spider Climb, 2nd – ESP,Rope Trick, Stinking Cloud, 3rd – Hold Person, Mount 2, Protection from Normal Missiles, 4th – Minor Globe of Invulnerability,
Items: Bracers AC:6, Dagger of Throwing +2, Wand of Fear (14), Scroll: Bigby’s Interposing Hand (10%F/5%RH), Contact Other Plane (10%F/5%RH). Ring of Spell Storing (Guards and Wards)
When my Thursday group was back in my home brew city, the party thieves decided they wanted to join the local guild, and the price of admission was a job. There was a warlock, Olin Hulm, and his 5 apprentices, who were going to be charging a powerful wand in several days at Olin’s tower. While doing this, most of the warlocks would be on the roof, the requirements of the spell state that Hulm must be in contact with the wand at all times, and the other warlocks and Hulm cast spells into the wand as it is charged. This is the perfect opportunity for a break in, as the majority of the warlocks are distracted. Yes, the tower will have defences, but they stand a good chance of being able to break in and take something. They had to show they had the brass. The wand charging process would start at midnight.
They went to the tower before midnight, and the two party thieves decided they wanted to see what was happening on the roof. Two other party members were there, they would wait in the shadows below and keep look out for the city watch. The two thieves climbed up to the top of the tower and listened, hearing voices.
One of them rolls his HIS to try and look over the edge without being seen, he is successful, and spies 4 warlocks assembling the materials for the spell casting. The two party thieves then decide, on the spot, that they should go on to the roof, surprise the magic-users, slay them, and take the wand, even with few charges in it the wand would be a valuable item to steal, and it would get them mad cred.
I reminded them there were 4 warlocks here, and that they didn’t know their levels, so if they were going to do this, it would have to be fast and efficient. Then I even threw them a bone and reminded them of a time a few sessions back when someone raised an alarm. That hadn’t gone well.
So they both climb up both made their hide in shadows rolls and hid in the darkness. Then one of the thieves waited until everyone’s attention was directed away from them, and he moved silently to backstab one of the warlocks, and his companion waited with his crossbow nocked and aimed
The thief failed his move silently roll, everyone turned around, and all hell broke loose. During the course of the fight, Zimmerlin Suel took a crossbow bolt in the eye, blinding him. Two warlocks died. The thieves lost, however, they were stripped of their weapons and items, beaten, given a message to deliver, and dropped at the foot of a well known thieve’s guild tavern to send a message. At the time I rolled an encounter reaction roll for Olin Hulm when the thieves were defeated, and he decided sending them back alive with a message was more important than simply killing them.
So off they went after that to their next adventure. They encountered some owlbears on the way and lost their party druid. They went to the Temple of Horus and had him brought back. However, the price for this was a quest to find the Mask of Horus, an artifact lost to the temple for centuries. So they took off to do that, and that has been the game for the last year, they are completing the quest soon.
Back when they left the tower, I decided that Zimmerlin Suel, who saw two of his allies slain and was blinded, and was then cheated of the satisfaction of seeing the culprits slain because his master wanted to send a message to the guild, was not happy.
This is how the game sustains itself. The PCs do something, and it has consequences. The game hands them up to you like a gift. When the thieves were defeated, I could have slain them, but I roll for that stuff to keep the game from getting predictable. When I rolled a positive reaction, I interpreted that as Olin Hulm thinking the PCs were worth more to him alive than dead. The dice roll result forces me to interpret it, and this inspires me to create a “reaction” of the game world to the player’s actions. As soon as I had Hulm let the players go, it immediately made me think that Suel would be pissed. It just jumped out at me.
But since the PCs already had something on the go, I made Zimmerlin Suel’s revenge a dice result on my random tables. At some random point, Suel would show up for his revenge. The longer it took for the result to come up, the more prepared he would be.
The PCs adventured for 8 months (64 hours at the table) and Suel came up on the tables.
So I added a henchman/partner (Jonin Shinzo, fighter) and a few spells to his arsenal, specifically higher level spells). I didn’t level him up though, as he was higher level than anyone in the party when they met.
So the party was in the middle of the desert, on the way to the Lost City, and I rolled the encounter. At that point I decided Suel had tracked the party since they left the tower (something he could do as he knew two of the party members and he had access to a crystal ball). When they left on their voyage Suel followed them. His master allowed him to pursue his vengeance, and gave him a small sum, the crystal ball, and a few powerful spells. Along the way he picked up a henchman. He also knew of the party’s quest.
They approached the party while they were camped down (they were sleeping in a tent during the heat of the day) The party member on watch saw them coming, they used their spyglass to see two men on giant lizards approaching and dismounting about 500’ away. Suel sat in the sand behind his mount where he couldn’t be seen while Shinzo stayed mounted. Suel took out a scroll and started casting a spell.
The party member on watch decided they were likely nomads, and decided to keep an eye on them but otherwise wait. He wanted to let the spell casters sleep so they could rememorize spells in the morning, and the men were very distant. I tell him that they stay where they are for a time. The player says he’ll wait until they do something.
There is some discussion at the table, the other players running the sleeping PCs argue about whether or not he should wake them. One even suggests that the guy who got off the giant lizard could be casting a spell! They argued about that too. Finally, they convince him to have his PC wake them up. At that point I had to decide how much time had passed, as the spell has a casting time. So I used the time of the conversation as a guide, and pegged it at around 5 minutes or so.
The two men were 500’ away, waking up everyone and getting them in armor and such (you don’t sleep in armor) takes two rounds (house ruled that when it came up a few times). None of the party spell casters had a spell with the required range, so the party martial PCs charged out to get to at least missile fire range (about 100’ for a med range shot). They ru
n 120’ per round. They hit the 360’ point at round 10, when the spell culminates. A 16 HD earth elemental was summoned and appeared at a range of 100’ from Suel, that put it 40’ in front of the martial party members, the spell casters were back at the tent.
Suel calls out to the party that he is here to restore his honor, and to demand restitution from the offending party, in this case the party thief who shot him in the eye. He tells them they have to decide immediately or he send in the elemental. What the party doesn’t know is that in 1e the longer the elemental is around the more likely he will turn on his caster. So Suel wanted this sorted immediately.
The party thief asked what Suel wanted, Suel wanted to take his eye in compensation. That was another on the spot thing. But it made sense. He was humiliated, defeated in front of his patron, and saw two of his allies slain, and he was denied revenge! In my setting, honor is important, and warlocks are public figures. If he was to ever have power in the city, he had to address this. It was the perfect, overdramatic but entirely setting specific thing.
There was some table talk, one of the players knew that the elemental was harder to control the longer you had it around, and he pointed out that they could try to stall, or disperse, as the elemental wasn’t fast enough. The thief decided that even if they managed to survive the elemental, Suel would have other spells, and they would likely take big losses. And the decision to ambush the warlocks back a the tower, rather than sticking to the plan of sneaking around when they were occupied, was recognized by the party at the time as being a dumb idea. So this was sort of the wheel coming around.
The party member in question, who later went on to become a bard, was one of the marital characters up front. He walked up to Suel and his companion Shinzo, he presented himself, and Suel slashed him across the right eye with his dagger, blinding him.
BADASS.
What a role playing moment. Everyone was blown away, and the player was virtually strutting around the room. No one expected him to take a penalty to hit because of this, to maim his own PC.
So Suel retreated to his mount, and rode away leaving the elemental behind for a round or two more, then ended the spell and kept going.
The party decided not to pursue. The party druid healed the HP, but to heal the eye required a more powerful spell, and that didn’t happen for about 5 more sessions.
But here is where the real RP gold set in. I got to thinking, Suel travelled halfway around the world to restore his honor, and the thief took it like a champ. No fighting, no complaining, no fear. So I rolled an encounter reaction roll, it was positive on the second roll, and I interpreted this as Suel deciding after leaving the party that he was impressed with the thief. Suel’s society is honor based, and what the PC did was honorable. So Suel an his companion decide they want to to join in their quest, the party could have the mask, he would collect other treasures along the way. This would mean that he could bring back items of power to his patron as well.
So I roll to see how long it is until he comes to this conclusion. I get a 1 week. So the party adventures for ttwo weeks in game, and by then they are underground following a river to find the Mask of Horus. I have Suel catch up to the party when they are trying to get around with a makeshift boat.
He tells them he was impressed with the thief’s honor, and wants to join them on their quest. He and Shinzo ask for a share of the treasure, but have no interest in the mask.
There is a buzz of conversation, can we trust this guy, is this just a trick?
Suel has a home brew spell called Mount 2, I gave it to him to explain why they had giant lizard mounts for their long journey (trying to bring along a giant lizard mount for a long journey across oceans and mountains was a stretch). So while they are discussing this Suel offers to cast his spell for the party so they could also have giant lizard mounts who can swim and take them down the river, and also climb the walls thanks to their talons.
This starts to sway things. Then as they continue to discuss if they should say yes, Suel asks them, “How will you find this mask of yours, do you know where it is?”
That produced a lot of conversation. And eventually he told them he had a spell he could use when they believed they were close, that would allow them to find out where the Mask was. In this case it’s a Contact Other Plane spell on a scroll.
That sealed the deal.
So now Zimmerlin Suel, a background NPC in a fight, has become a NPC party member, with some history between him and the party thief. None of this came from anything I designed intentionally. If you look at Suel’s spells, his role in the Warlock’s tower was to cast Guards and Wards from his ring if anyone broke in. So as you can see he didn’t have a lot of offensive spells.
He wasn’t supposed to matter to the game. He was an opponent to challenge the PCs. But once the PCs engage with the game world, they bring it alive as it responds to them.
So you don’t need to have a plot, or an overall narrative, or goal, when you start. You just have to let the players poke at the game world, and as they do you will see your game world grow in response. NPCs are a big part of this, the party has picked up many as they adventure, and a few have died (a priest of Osiris who was following the party as they were on a quest for the Temple of Horus, a mid level sorcerer who was acting as a patron to a lower level party member magic-user).
NPCs are one vector for this, factions are another (recall that what started this off was the party wanting to get in good graces with the thieve’s guild, that was their idea, not mine), but it is surprisingly easy to run a whole multi-year campaign like this, with the party driving the game in concert with a robust factionalized setting.
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