Sandbox: The Map, part 1

There are numerous sources about making maps. The cartographers guild, for example, is a great source to learn how to map well and see numerous examples of maps. Hence, I really have no desire to get into realistic map-making.

In fact, I'm not much of a huge fan of being overly "realistic". Take World of Warcraft for example, that world map makes no damn sense.

madness

Arctic regions butt-up against deserts. The size of it is, at best, vague and somewhat crazy. Does anyone care? nope. It serves the game. The same is true for a sandbox map. It needs to be 'realistic' enough to not ruin the game, but ultimately needs to serve the game.

So what are the needs of a Sandbox map?
The Map needs to be big (but not too big), filled with lots of things to do and see, and to help the player's characters rock out.

About to Rock Out

Now, my first impulse is to make a new map and explain how I designed it in a series of post. But, after a moments though, I decide I don't want to do that because I want a map that could (in theory) be ready to play a little quicker than that. So I should use one of the legion of maps I already have. After some though, I chose a map I have, didn't make, but needs some cleaning up.

Long ago there was a website called "Irony Games". IG was fantastic. It had dozens of game aids. Not the least of which were it's maps. Tavern maps, world maps, clearings, islands, and space map that is simple insane. The IG galaxy was bigger than you can imagine. Sadly, it is lost to the ages. IG is no longer up, and no matter how hard I try, finding the resources once available is futile.

But, before IG went quietly into the night, I map this map:

Remember how I said they had island maps? well, they had 101 island maps. This map is a 10x10 of 100 of them and I have the 101st here:

Originally I added a name to each map using the 101 names of Ahura Mazda. Later, I decided I didn't like those names and needed more than 101 of them (since some of the island maps are actually 2 or 3 islands. So I will need to redo that.

Also, the map quality is, at best, poor and simplistic. It has good bones, but poor execution. I want to import it into hexographer. That will let me make changes, add to it, change up the terrain, name things better, and effect other needed changes. I like this idea because the map is large, but each island is relatively small. It's similar in concept to games like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and others. Exploring an entire island is completely reasonable, likely several islands. Exploring the whole map is much less likely.

Similar, in concept, to Wind Waker. Not similar visually.

Map Love

I love maps. I mean seriously. I love them way more than you think I do when I say I love them. Take all the love you have for any map, ever, and I swear I love maps more than that. Let me show you how much I love maps.

Inverted Earth

This is one of my more elaborate hexographer mapping projects. It's extremely time consuming and sometimes exhausting. Maybe I'll blog on it in detail sometime. It's huge. Doing the Euro-Asia Sea may just kill me. All those brown lines are mountains that make the Himalayas look like a joke.

Scion

This is another "unfinished" project I did with Fractal Mapper. I used the Manual of the Planes as a concept for a physical map. One of the rare times I let land be on the edge of a map (I like complete continents). I actually ran a game in Arcadia and Acheron using this map.

Heredis

This is Mo's favorite map (that I made). I've actually run some stuff using this map. It was another fractal mapper map I did. It's essentially complete. I could add too it, but I likely never will.

Beyond these little projects I have dozens of other maps. I have an entire folder for map on my computer. We are talking about hundreds of maps ranging from single buildings to entire worlds. I have one map that puts all the TSR/Wizards campaign settings on a single Earth-sized planet. The detail on that one leaves something to be desired and I'd love a high-rez version. I've tried a few times to put as many maps as I can into a single world, but usually the size of the project just crashes whatever program I am running. I know some ways around that of course (and on this machine it's not as much an issue).

So when the first step of a sandbox it "Map" I get a surge of happiness, followed by a surge of terror. I have to pick just one map?

Building a Sandbox

Before you can play in a sandbox, you must build the sandbox. But, before you build a sandbox maybe one should have a plan first. That's what I want to work on today. If I am going to build a sandbox, I want to have something like a plan to do so. I'll almost certainly need to change the outline as I run into problems, but a framework is probably a good idea.

Arbitrarily I want 7 steps.

1. The Map - A map is essential to a sandbox setting and the obvious first step.
2. "Civilize" the map - That is, put cities, towns, and villages on the map.
3. Points of Interest - Add in dungeons, ruins, battlefields, and interesting places to the map.
4. Name it - make sure place on the map have names (including geographic features).
5. Monsters - Decide what God-forsaken nightmares live where (and normal animals too).
6. Details - Flesh out the civilized locations.
7. More Details - Flesh out the wild locations.

There is a fairly decent chance I will change and/or expand on this.

Steps:
The Map: Part 1
The Map: Part 2
The Map: Part 3

Estevan and the Estevan Warriors

Mo could not come to the game today because she had a horrid night at work last night and did not get home till about 10 and didn't get to bed till like 11:30 or noon.

But the session was fun all the same. Ali and Joel got a new set of cards for Savage Worlds. The cards are awesome and I will find a way to convert them to...well any and every system I ever play, ever.

My character is totally not this.

The session itself was exactly what they promised last night. An episodic mission from the Wall. Our group was ordered to go past the wall and find some remains of the rangers who were lost beyond the wall. Along the way we found a Frost Wolf killin a Dire Wolf. We took care of Frost and saved the Dire Wolf. I named him Obsidian in honor of a past game (Sid for short).

We got ambushed by a bunch of hippies wildlings. My wolf and I both killed one each right off the first round. Very cool. I played my card, which was supposed to be me saying something so intimidating that it basically stops combat. I couldn't think of anything cool to say. I needed a random table of witty sayings. :(

Once we dispatched the hippies wildlings, we camped and in the morning we continued North. After a bit in the woods we found a scary tree. Sev (Joel's character) and ... Lucian's character... attacked the tree...for some reason. It hit them back and then we walked around it and left it alone. Odd encounter that.

Who ya gonna call?

Finally, we found a clearing with a bunch of bodies and a sword that looked like it was from a Ranger. Bea's character, Myra, touched it and it came to life. Well, a ghostly figure appeared and attacked us with the sword. Sev tried to hit the ghost...that did nothing, so I shot the sword. That worked a bit better.

After several rounds of beating on this thing we finally wore it down and broke the sword. Having secured what we came for (remains of a ranger) we headed back. To Sir. Al's disappointment, we survived and I gained my wolf companion.

Good session.

Resources

These are the three best links I know of that form the basic frame work that I will build from.

1: Jeff Rients' How to Awesome up your Players: This is one of the better starting points for playing an RPG I've ever read. Not really about world building, but if you start with this mindset, I think you are good to go.

2: Reynard's 7 Sandbox Essentials: A very nice summation of the basic concepts for a Sandbox without getting bogged down in minutia. 

3: Bat in the Attic's "How to make a Fantasy Sandbox": An extensive (if somewhat incomplete) break down of step by step Sandbox building. While a decent outline, it gets lost in the details.

Books I will most likely draw from include Sandbox-ish settings like
Greyhawk - The original sandbox. 
Wilderlands of High Fantasy - Old school sandbox.
Ptolus -  As close to a sandbox as Monte Cook is going to get. Almost too much detail to be a true sandbox though.
Liberty - Another good 'city' sandbox. Irritating they never released more than the 3 supplements. I need to buy the Arcane Quarter...
Scarred Lands - Kinda like Greyhawk's younger brother.
Violet Dawn - Very Sandbox-ish and much in line with Wilderlands. 

That is far from comprehensive of course, and I don't know how much I will actually draw from any of those sources.

Sandboxing

Through most of my gaming history I've been into world building. I like doing it. Sadly, the majority of my gaming style was more about telling stories than making worlds. The game was a story (and so was the setting). There is nothing inherently wrong with that from a self-serving, having fun point of view. The only issue from a gaming perspective is that it is self-serving.

GMing should be fun, and world-building should be too, but at the end of the day the GM is there to facilitate the game for the players. Or, if you prefer, the GM has one kind of fun and the players have another. The GM may enjoy writing histories and stories about his setting and players may even enjoy reading them at some point (unlikely as that is). But, when the game starts most players are ready for their characters to do something. This does not include reading or listening to the thousand-year history of...whatever. 

My job: panels 1-6. Players Job: 7 & 8. 

Over the last year or so I've adopted a more 'old-school' point of view. I'm not sure I'm part of the 'old-school revolution' other bloggers talk about, but I respect the movement. I have exactly zero interest in crafting a 1-20 adventure path for my players that more or less railroads them into a plot. 

I'd much rather spend my non-gaming free time building a sandbox world for them to rip to damn shreds.  I want my players to feel free to pursue what is best in life. (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women). I want the world to exist not to provide the players a story they play out (like a video game) but rather a place for them to rock out and be awesome. I want the effect to be from the players not towards them. 

To that end I plan to begin working on a sandboxing project. I've been reading up on this sort of approach and I feel I have a good enough grasp of how to do it to get to work. I'm not sure when (or even if) my players will get a chance to rip it to shreds, but I hope they do. Just like building a block fort, the best part is knocking it down and watching it fall. 

Taking a Break

I stepped down from GMing with my group last session. I needed a break. I've been GMing for a long time now. Most of the group seems pretty happy about my GMing, but I got to the point where I was not. I felt like it was poor quality stuff (regardless if it was good or not). I was burned out basically.

Nothing recharges my GM batteries like being a player. It, almost magically, reignites my imagination, creativity, and drive. One session (and mostly character creation session) and I was already thinking new things. I have numerous theories why being a player (even for just a few hours) has this effect, I imagine more than one is correct while the others are just psychological bat-shit.

Regardless, the session was (for a character creation session) fun. Not much happened, and having two GMs is weird but oddly effective. It's just mind-boggling cool to watch Joel and Ali seamlessly co-GM without so much as a hiccup. I was never confused who was actively GMing and what was going on. I seriously doubt I could co-GM as a general thing and sure as hell could not do it that smoothly.

We're using Savage Worlds for a fantasy setting (loosely) based on the Game of Thrones setting. Regardless of my opinion of that book, I think the setting is interesting and Joel and Ali's liberal interpretation is likely to make for a good game. I suspected it to be largely story-driven, but it seems they intend for it to be more episodic and disconnected than that. I applaud that plan as I doubt our group is truly capable of a solid story-drive epic-plot sort of game.

yeah...it's not a bear, but it will do.

And frankly, I am glad of it. I've grown a great deal away from the mega-plot games and want to deal more with episodic, sandbox-style games. They tend toward my world-building side, my general disinterest in any story a GM gives me (I'd rather make my own by Rocking the pants off whatever setting my character is in). I tried to get the GM to let me have a lion or a bear companion (either I could ride) but (as per a completely fair and very cool GM decision) I rolled up a dire wolf (which in SW is too damn small to ride). Still, dire wolf. Then we did a PvP beat fest that took the rest of the session and ended with most of us on the ground. I went down first because I didn't do a damn think with my character that made them particularly combat effective.

Still, I think you can grasp from my writing was I enthused about the session. I'm looking forward to actually getting my wolf into play and kicking some...whatever the bad guys in GoT are. I know there is a big ass Ice Wall to ward off something nasty, no real idea what they are. I don't plan on exploring their motivations or tactics much either. I suspect it will largely break down to me shooting arrows into whatever the hell my wolf is gnawing on.